Cold Mtn at Tibet Will Be Free directs our attention to large protests that happened again in Lhasa yesterday, just as or shortly after a guided tour of foreign diplomats left Tibet’s capital.

Details are emerging about fresh protests in Lhasa today. According to Radio Free Asia:

Witnesses in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, say fresh protests erupted there on Saturday afternoon despite a massive Chinese police and paramilitary presence there.

Witnesses told RFA’s Tibetan service that several hundred Tibetans rallied around 2 p.m. on March 29, beginning in the area near Center Beijing Road. Shops near the central post ofice on Lhasa Youth Road were closed, as security forces surrounded the Tibetan residential areas in Barkhor and Kama Kunsang, Ramoche, and the Jokhang temple.

“People were running in every direction,” one witness said. “It was a huge protest and people were shouting.”

According to the Associated Press, the protests occurred “as diplomats wrapped up a visit organized by Beijing in an effort to blunt criticism of its crackdown on unrest in the region.”

The 15-member delegation of diplomats from the U.S., Japan, and European countries apparently left Lhasa about an hour before the protests erupted. The U.S. Embassy in Beijing issued a brief statement after the visit that shouldn’t surprise anyone: “The delegation was not permitted to move about independently in Lhasa, and was unable to hold unsupervised conversations with local residents.” [Emphasis added]

Yet again, when presented with an opportunity to allow real access to Tibet, China chose to wall outsiders off from what is really going on in Tibet. Tibetans remain silenced from speaking to the press or diplomats. The world has not yet heard the full extent of Tibetans’ accounts of what has happened in Lhasa and elsewhere over the last 20 days.  It’s truly a testament to the bravery and patriotism of Tibetans inside Tibet that both of China’s dog and pony shows guided tours of journalists and diplomats have been met by large, visible acts of protests that belie China’s claims of control over Tibet. Only in this way, by their continued resistance and defiance to the Chinese military crackdown against their protests, do Tibetans show the world their unequivocal opposition to China’s occupation of Tibet.