China vows to intensify crackdown on pro-Tibet materials

DHARAMSHALA, July 18: China has vowed to implement more stringent measures to crackdown on what it calls “illegal publications” and “reactionary promotional products” including text messages, audio visual products, TV and radio programmes and books in Tibet. China deems publications on the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the exile Tibetan administration, Tibetan freedom struggle as well as literature on human rights such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as “illegal” and “reactionary.” Announcing the measures, Li Changjiang, a senior official from the national anti-pornography and anti-illegal publications office said the crackdown will target books, newspapers, magazines, promotional pamphlets, text messages, audio and visual products, TV and radio programs, as well as electronic publications that are deemed to be illegal or reactionary. "Sharing information and investigating cases will be part of joint prevention and control efforts among multiple provincial departments," state-run Xinhua news agency quoted Li as saying at a meeting on Wednesday. Li called for regional governments to take the lead in investigating such publications and asked related departments to cooperate with the local governments. Figures from the office show that more than 1.32 million “illegal publications and promotional items” have been confiscated since 2011 in the so-called Tibet Autonomous Region. Last month, China strongly denied reports of any relaxation in their decades old policy in Tibet of a blanket ban on the display of portraits of the Dalai Lama after reports came of isolated instances of relaxation in the ban as “experimental” measures, came out of Tibet. The Chinese state bureau for religious affairs said there had been “no policy change” and maintained that China's policy towards the Dalai Lama, considered by Beijing a “splittist,” was "consistent and clear". "If the Dalai Lama wants to improve his relationship with the Central Government, he must really give up his stance in favour of 'Tibetan Independence' or independence in any disguised forms," the state bureau had said. Since 2009, as many as 119 Tibetans living under China’s rule have set themselves on fire demanding freedom and the return of the Dalai Lama from exile. Scores of Tibetans have been arrested and disappeared for keeping portraits of the Dalai Lama in their phones or at homes, and singing songs or writing about the Tibetan spiritual leader who relinquished all his political authorities to the elected Tibetan leadership in 2011.