Tibetan Activists Storm into Chinese Embassy

10 October 2007

New Delhi: About two dozen Tibetan activists living in exile in India broke through the gates of the Chinese embassy yesterday and painted "Free Tibet" on the building walls before being arrested by police, witnesses said.

The demonstrators were collared by security guards, dragged and pushed out of the building after the breach. Protesters are usually stopped by police well outside the high-security compound.

The protest in New Delhi came a day after China accused Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, of supporting "evil cults" like Falun Gong and Japan's Aum Shinrikyo.

Dressed in robes and their faces smeared with colours of the Tibetan flag, slogan-shouting activists painted "Free Tibet" and "Quit China" with red paint on the brass nameplate of the embassy gate and also on its white walls.

One activist strapped himself with an iron chain to the embassy gate while another tied himself to a flag pole in the building's front yard on which the Chinese flag was hoisted.

"This protest was against the new Chinese law which bars any Buddhist monk living outside China from recognising a 'living Buddha'," said Dhondup Dorjee, vice-president of the Tibetan Youth Congress.