Tibetan activists protest Chinese Foreign Minister’s visit to India

DHARAMSALA, Dec 21: Tibetan activists greeted visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi with protests calling for freedom for Tibetans and an end to the Chinese occupation of Tibet.

Activists from Students for a Free Tibet-India (SFT) unfurled a banner from a flyover in overlooking the road which Wang Yi’s motorcade will pass in India’s Capital in the early hours of today’s morning.

The activists from the SFT unfurled a huge banner that read, “China, out of Tibet Now” from a flyover overlooking the road to be taken by Wang Yi’s motorcade from New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport before his arrival.

“We are holding the protest to hold the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and the Communist regime accountable for the ongoing genocide and atrocities inside Tibet,” SFT India’s Grassroots Director Rinzin Choedon said as they unfurled the huge banner.

So far, 156, Tibetans have self-immolated inside Tibet since Feb 2009 in an apparent protest against China’s repressive rule in Tibet. All the Tibetan self-immolators have called for freedom to be restored in Tibet and His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s return to Tibet.

SFT further called on India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj who will co-chair the meeting with her Chinese counterpart to take up the Tibet issue at the meeting.

“We want to urge India’s Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj ji to take up the Tibet issue during the meeting and to remind India that development and friendship at the cost of human rights are not acceptable,” SFT India’s Grassroots Director added.

Wang landed in Delhi today to attend the first meeting of the High-Level Mechanism on People-to-People Exchanges. He will also call on President Ram Nath Kovind and visit Aurangabad and Mumbai.

It is understood that the decision to establish the four-day forum from Dec 21-24, was taken at the Wuhan summit between Prime Minister Modi and President Xi Jinping in April earlier this year.

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