Australia, September 3 – The recent refusal to grant an Australian documentary maker media accreditation to attend the upcoming APEC conference highlights the Australian Government’s farcical approach to freedom of the press.
Adelaide based Lara Damiani is currently in producing her documentary about the issue of Tibet. She was refused media accreditation on the grounds that she was not from a “bona fide news and current affairs media organisation”. The reason given? “Space, security and protocol restrictions, prohibits (the) application being filled.”
“I’d like to know what constitutes a “bona fide news and current affairs media organisation. Obviously one that won’t ask any difficult questions” she said.. “A documentary that will be released to an international audience with a focus on a critical global issue that has been a ‘current affair’ since 1950….you can’t get much more ‘bona fide’ than that” she said.
“The Howard Government is clearly calling the shots to ensure that they control, as much as possible, the media outcomes of this junket” said Lara. “The sad fact is that here we are, entertaining some of the world’s most unwanted leaders who are actually responsible for putting our world into the mess that it’s in” she said.
John Howard has said that APEC was a chance for Australia to be the focus of some of the world’s biggest economies, including the United States, Russia, China and Japan. He typifies the problem of our world today, an attitude which feeds the issue of Tibet – a focus on the rich getting richer, and helping each other to do it.
While the intention to discuss reducing greenhouse gas emissions is noble, it’s unlikely they’ll talk about how they can reduce the massive environmental devastation occurring across the roof of the world – Tibet.
Brutally invaded by China in 1950 and today Tibet continues to be an oppressed and strictly controlled nation under the People’s Republic of China. Few global governments dare to make noise about what is happening in Tibet because of China’s massive economic global power.
The oppression and control in Tibet was witnessed first hand by Lara Damiani who recently returned from filming in Tibet. To avoid suspicion and so as not to endanger the lives of the local Tibetan community and the guides, filming was undertaken under the guise of a tourist.
Lara Damiani’s self-funded documentary is about the last remaining non-violent freedom struggle in the world today and explores whether there is a future for Tibet. With the assistance of a monk, she managed to secretly film what is probably one of only two remaining public pictures of the Dalai Lama in Tibet. She was also stopped and questioned by Chinese military for filming a bridge outside of Lhasa.
“Many people still don’t really know what is going on in Tibet. Including many Chinese people who’ve been getting a very skewed version of history as evidenced in the Tibet Museum in Lhasa” said Lara. “The aim of my documentary is to help spread the message of Tibet which is also a metaphor for everywhere that exploitation of the environment, human rights abuses and destruction of indigenous culture is occurring” she said.
The feature length documentary, scheduled for release early in 2008, includes interview footage with the Dalai Lama, Tibetan activist and poet Tenzin Tsundue and outspoken advocate for Independence, Lhasang Tsering who broke his three-year media silence to talk with Lara. There are interviews with a 78-year-old woman imprisoned for 27 years and monks and nuns tortured and imprisoned in Tibet and now living in exile in India. It has been filmed in India, Tibet, China and Australia.
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For more information, visit: www.thetibetproject.com
