By Phurbu Thinley
Dharamsala, June 29: Chinese government has requested the Nepal government to curb “growing demonstration against the china by the Tibetan exiles,” according to a Nepalese media report.
The Chinese government has made this request through its ambassador to Nepal, Reviewnepal.com reported.
The Chinese pressure comes in the wake of sporadic protests being organized by Tibetan exiles in Nepal.
Nepal police on Friday reportedly arrested 35 Tibetans, including eight women, near the Tibetan border as they tried to cross over and stage a protest march in Tibet as part of a “Free Tibet” campaign.
According to Reviewnepal.com, some Tibetans had also simultaneously demonstrated in the country’s Kavre district on Friday to protests against Chinese rule in Tibet.
The protests were the first open show of defiance by Tibetan exiles in Nepal in as many months.
A visit by Chinese delegation in February this year, forced the district administration in Kathmandu, which last year witnessed unbroken protests by Tibetans for almost eight months, to impose an indefinite order prohibiting all protests near the Chinese embassy and its visa office. The ban came just days before the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan Uprising Day in March.
Tibetans exiles in Nepal last year staged some of the most dramatic and sustained demonstrations in Kathmandu, targeting the Chinese embassy, its visa office and the United Nations after unrest against Chinese rule in Tibet faced brutal Chinese military crackdown.
Tibetan demonstrations were routinely stopped by Nepali police, often using excessive force. The demonstrators regularly faced arrests, intimidation and in some cases individual threats and arbitrary detention.
Nepal’s brutal handling of Tibetan protesters had come under intense international criticism and the government had been accused of cracking down on the refugees under Chinese pressure.
In the midst of protests, China sent a flurry of high-level official delegation and repeatedly forced Nepal to effectively curb “Free-Tibet activities” while promising to increase assistance to the crisis-stricken country in return.
According to statistics, Nepal has more than 20,000 Tibetans refugees concentrated mainly in the Kathmandu valley and Pokhara in western Nepal.
The figure does not include Tibetans who arrived in the country after 1990 because the Nepalese government stopped registering them as refugees. Estimates also suggest between 2,500 and 3,000 Tibetans escape Tibet and enter Nepal each year after a perilous journey over the Himalayas on their way to Dharamsala, the seat of Tibetan Government-in-Exile in north India.
In a message to the country, Nepal’s new Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal on Sunday said that his newly formed government would give top priority to democracy and human rights while going about the task of fulfilling the people’s aspirations.
