A media tour convened by the Chinese government in the traditional Tibetan region in west China’s Gansu province on 9 April 2008 was upset by a group of about 20 monks. The monks said they wanted their exiled-spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to return to Tibet, further underscoring that they had no human rights here. While this was the first incident of this nature to have occurred in the Gansu province of China, a similar incident took place in Tibetan capital Lhasa towards the end of March.

 

As per the information from the news agencies the monks suddenly emerged from a building at the Labrang monastery in Xiahe, a town in China’s northwestern province of Gansu, holding a banned Tibetan flag. Thereafter these monks surrounded the 20 visiting Chinese as well as foreign journalists. One of the monks said in Chinese that the Dalai Lama needed to come back to Tibet and that they were not demanding Tibetan independence, but just human rights.

 

The official Xinhua agency also published this happening. It read that a group of monks had interrupted the event at Labrang monastery and that the visit resumed soon after, but the report contained lesser details. Other news agencies and eyewitnesses say that the monks’ protest lasted for about 10 minutes before being goaded by senior colleagues to disband.

 

The Reuters has quoted Gongqihujinba, vice-director of the Labrang monastery’s management committee, as saying that what the visiting journalists saw was a very small minority of people who disrupted harmonious and peaceful life and religious activities. What they did was not consistent with national security laws, or rules on religion, he had added.