This Sunday 10 March is the 60th anniversary of the first major popular Uprising against China's rule - in Lhasa in 1959 - when the Dalai Lama was forced to escape from Tibet (below, centre). He reached safety in India on 30 March 1959.
Whilst Tibetans are paying tribute to the courage of generations both past and present, China is preparing to befuddle the UN Human Rights Council with its response to last November's Universal Periodic Review. As previously, China has rejected most of the Tibet-related recommendations, include basic requests for UN officials to visit, calling them “inconsistent with China’s national conditions, contradictory with Chinese laws, politically biased or untruthful.” Bizarrely, China claims to have "already implemented" a recommendation to restart dialogue on Tibet, when in fact there has been no acknowledged formal contact with the Dalai Lama's representatives since 2010. - International Tibet Network
