By GREIG CAMERON
THREE protesters were arrested after a demonstration at the Chinese consulate in Edinburgh yesterday, over the country’s treatment of Tibet.
The action came ahead of the Dalai Lama’s visit to Scotland this summer and was timed to mark the 45th anniversary of the massacre of thousand’s of Tibetans by Chinese forces.
Protestors from the Students for a Free Tibet group walked into the consulate, sat down and refused to leave. Consulate employees then phoned the police, who arrested the two men and one woman, all Edinburgh University students. Iona Liddell, 20, the president of the Edinburgh branch of Students for a Free Tibet, said that the “atrocities” in Tibet could not be allowed to continue.
She said: “We are here today to mark the anniversary of a massacre in 1959, when 87,000 Tibetans were murdered by Chinese forces.
“Those are just the Chinese figures and Tibetans estimate the figure was closer to 430,000. All they were doing was waiting in front of the Dalai Lama’s palace in Lhasa, the capital.
“These atrocities are continuing in Tibet today.”
No-one from the Chinese consulate in Edinburgh was available for comment.
