HONG KONG – A TALK in Hong Kong by an international activist for Tibetan self-determination which was postponed after China voiced its disapproval has been rescheduled, organisers said on Wednesday.
Kate Saunders, the communications director for the International Campaign for Tibet, had been scheduled to speak at Hong Kong’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCC) last month.
The event was delayed after the Hong Kong office of China’s Foreign Ministry suggested to the FCC that the talk was too one-sided and should include a speaker representing Beijing’s views.
The speech, entitled ‘A Great Mountain Burned by Fire: Reflections on New Expressions of Dissent and the Crisis in Tibet”, has been rescheduled for Monday. Saunders will speak alone.
Ernst Herb, the president of the FCC, said the club had hoped to find a high-profile speaker who would put forward Beijing’s point of view on the issue.
‘We took something of a gamble on this,’ he told AFP. ‘Once the foreign ministry got in touch and said they didn’t like it, we asked why didn’t they bring someone on their side. We thought that would be more of a scoop.’
Herb said the club was still in talks with the ministry about a possible speaker and hoped to organise an event later in the year.
Tibet remains an extremely sensitive subject for China. Authorities have launched a massive security clampdown in recent weeks in a bid to quell possible unrest as Tibetans marked the 50th anniversary of a failed uprising against Chinese rule in the mountainous region.
Hong Kong has a different legal system from mainland China and enjoys much greater freedoms, including a free press, and it is sometimes a focus for anti-China protests.
