LHASA – China has not banned pictures of the Dalai Lama in Tibet, but the people of the Himalayan region themselves have chosen not to put them on display, a senior Chinese official said yesterday.
Chinese troops imposed Beijing’s rule over Tibet in 1950 and the god-king fled to India after an abortive anti-Chinese uprising nine years later. Beijing fears his return could trigger a renewal of anti-Chinese riots that rocked the region in the late 1980s.
So nervous are authorities in the deeply Buddhist region about his influence that the Dalai Lama’s photograph has been effectively banned since the mid-1990s.
Deputy chairman of the Tibet government, Wu Jilie, denied that any such ban existed.
“Not to have the Dalai Lama’s photo I think is the voluntary choice of the vast majority of peasants and herdsmen. There is no government stipulation,” he said. “They chose to do it themselves because the Dalai Lama has aroused the distrust and resolute opposition of the vast majority of people here,” he said.
