Sunday, November 3, 2013

China to silence Dalai Lama in Tibet (video)

Wisdom Quarterly; Reuters in Beijing, Staff Reporter (scmp.com, Nov. 2, 2013); NTDTV.com
The Dalai Lama jokes in response to a question about the Chinese government. Making gestures like horns, the Tibetan spiritual leader said, "Why the Chinese government is sort of afraid of me? The totalitarian government think of me as a demon" (10-21-09). He talked about the Four Noble Truths to thousands of Buddhists from Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, China, Vietnam, and Indonesia who converged at Tsuglagkhang temple (demotix.com).

British: "China staged Tibet riots"
Magic Tibetan ritual (sacbee.com)
(NTDTV) The G2 Bulletin has just published an important update on the situation in Tibet. Britain's GCHQ monitors half of the world from space. They have confirmed the Dalai Lama's claim that CCP agents posed as Buddhist monks and triggered riots that have left hundreds of Tibetans dead or injured. GCHQ analysts believe the Beijing leadership is behind the large riots as a way to provide an excuse -- or pretext -- to stamp out the simmering unrest in the region. The same has been confirmed by British intelligence officers in Beijing. Satellites orbiting the earth closely monitored the situation. The images they downloaded from the satellites provided confirmation the CCP used agent provocateurs to start riots.
  
China to silence Dalai Lama in Tibet
Reuters in Beijing and Staff Reporter (scmp.com, Nov. 2, 2013)
The 14th Dalai Lama and actor/activist Richard Gere, D.C. (japanese-buddhsim.com)
  
Comedian Russell Brand and Dalai Lama
The government says it will confiscate illegal satellite dishes and increase monitoring of online content to keep his voice quiet in his homeland

Beijing aims to stamp out the voice of exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama in Tibet by ensuring that his "propaganda" is not received by anyone on the internet, television, or other means, a top [Chinese] official said.
 
China has tried, with varying degrees of success, to prevent Tibetans from listening to or watching programs broadcast from outside the country, or accessing information about the Dalai Lama and the exiled government [of Tibet] on the Internet.

(Sky News) One hundred have died in riots in Tibet's capital against
Chinese authorities. Police used tear gas during clashes in Lhasa.
 
But many Tibetans are still able to access such news, either via illegal satellite televisions or by skirting Chinese Internet restrictions.
 
The Dalai Lama's picture and his teachings are also smuggled into Tibet but at great personal risk.
 
Writing in the ruling Communist Party's influential journal Qiushi, the latest issue of which was received by subscribers yesterday, Tibet's party chief Chen Quanguo said that the government would ensure only its voice is heard.
 
"Strike hard against the reactionary propaganda of the splittists from entering Tibet," Chen wrote in the magazine, whose name means "seeking truth." More

Chinese authorities invited journalists to Lhasa to interview Buddhist monks.
But during a visit to one of Lhasa's temples, a group of 30 monks stormed the
news briefing, accusing Chinese authorities of lying about violence and unrest.

Tibet is a plateau region north-east of the Himalayas. It was incorporated (i.e., forcefully invaded and occupied) by China in 1950 and is currently called an autonomous region in China, a growing empire of more than a billion Buddhist inhabitants ruled by the officially communist but actually capitalist dominant Han Chinese ethnic group. The conflict between many Tibetans and the Chinese [communist] government has been nonstop as many demand cultural autonomy, religious freedom, and basic human rights. In March, 2008, a series of protests -- using Chinese military agent provocateurs -- turned into "riots" in different regions across Tibet. The Chinese government used these as a pretext for Draconian measures of social control and genocide. Deadly Tibetan rioters were accused of attacking ethnic Han inhabitants and burning their Chinese-sponsored businesses.

Fire Under the Snow

Foreign delegate, GBC (Hindustan Times)
(2008) As the international debate over Tibetan freedom unfolds, the documentary "Fire Under the Snow" (see below) tells the story of a Tibetan Buddhist monk who was imprisoned and tortured by the Chinese communist army for 33 years.

The Tibetan Buddhist monk still has eyes that smile serenely. But the lines on Palden Gyatso's face tell a different story, a story of torture and decades of imprisonment. Gyatso recounts his arrest in 1959 while he was peacefully demonstrating with thousands of Buddhist monks and nuns. The CCP put him in prison for 23 years where he was tortured and in labor camps for 10 years. He was finally released in 1992.
 
Siberian Buddhist from Russia at BGC (HT)
Japanese film-maker Makoto Sasa was drawn to Gyatso's story mostly because of his strong, unbroken spirit despite such soul-wrenching suffering. Makoto Sasa says: "He could have gotten out of the prison if he would have said -- 'Yes, Tibet belongs to China, so I agree with what the Chinese government says.' But he didn't do that because he didn't believe in it. And this spirit I think is what people feel most from the film. And with that, they can look at the Tibetans, the current situation in Tibet and I think that's what they are going to get from the film."

Palden Gyatso: "When I finally got to India, I felt that I had reached the land of freedom and I felt that the atrocities that I had experienced, the atrocities that my fellow prisoners faced in prison, I felt that I had the duty to tell about those atrocities to the outside world."
 

 
Heidi Minx interviews Palden Gyatso and asks why he was arrested. He was a political prisoner held by the Chinese in Tibet for 33 years. To read his tragic story, see Autobiography of a Tibetan Monk.

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