Chinese cheerleaders and Tibetan protesters greeted the Olympic flame yesterday amid a massive security clampdown for the latest leg of the international torch relay in India, home to the world’s largest Tibetan exile community.
Much of New Delhi’s leafy British colonial-era center — the administrative heart of India, home to the presidential palace, parliament and myriad government ministries — was being sealed off to traffic and pedestrians by about 15,000 police ahead of the run.
The hundreds of thousands of people who work in the area were being advised to keep a low profile and to keep off the roofs and stay away from the windows of their office buildings.
Authorities desperate to avoid the chaos that has plagued the torch runs in London, Paris and other Western cities had reason to be worried — even the flame’s late-night arrival at New Delhi’s airport was marred by small protests.
Some two dozen Tibetan exiles chanted anti-China slogans and protested along a busy highway as the torch made its way into the city after being greeted at the airport by flag-waving traditional Indian dancers and Chinese cheerleaders. Several of the protesters were detained by police.
In Mumbai, India’s financial capital, police detained about 25 Tibetans who attempted to breach the barricades around the Chinese Consulate. Protesters shouted “Free Tibet” as they were dragged into police vehicles.
Tibetan exiles, who number more than 100,000 in India, have staged near-daily protests in New Delhi since demonstrations first broke out in Tibet last month and were put down by Chinese authorities.
In recent weeks, they have stormed the Chinese embassy, which is now surrounded by barricades and barbed wire, gone on hunger strikes and shaved their heads to protest China’s crackdown on the Tibet protests.
The exiles say the torch run through the city is a perfect opportunity to make their point, despite the fact that the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader, says he supports China’s hosting of the Olympics.
“By speaking out when the Chinese government brings the Olympic torch to India, you will send a strong message to Tibetans, to the Chinese government and to the world, that Indians support the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan people’s nonviolent struggle for freedom and justice,” said Students for a Free Tibet, a strident exile group.
Protests were expected to continue all day before the 4pm start of the relay.
Thousands of Tibetans were also taking part in their own torch run to highlight the Tibetan struggle against China.
The alternate run began yesterday morning with a Buddhist, Hindu and Sikh prayer session at the site where Indian pacifist Mohandas Gandhi was cremated. The torch was then lighted and Tibetans put on a show of traditional dancing.
Several dozen prominent Indians, including former defense minster George Fernandez, joined the Tibetans, who planned to march around the city with their alternate torch.
Some exiles said they planned to make a more dramatic statement later in the day, possibly trying to douse or steal the Olympic flame, although activists were sketchy about their plans.
Tenzin Tsundue, a Tibetan activist with a reputation for publicity stunts, said he did not want to talk about specific plans in a telephone interview on Wednesday because he fears his phone is tapped.
“But be at India Gate,” he said, referring to a monument in New Delhi that the torch was to pass.
Activists disrupted torch relays in Paris, London and San Francisco. However, stops in Kazakhstan, Russia, Argentina, Tanzania, Oman and Pakistan were trouble-free.
But in India, public sympathy lies with the Tibetans, who have sought refuge in the country since the Dalai Lama fled Tibet after a failed uprising in 1959.
Also See: India's glaring silence on Tibet
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS