An exiled Tibetan has group urged the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to scrap the Beijing Olympics torch relay through the region.
Beijing has been widely criticised following a large security operation after protests in Tibet in the past two weeks, a region China has occupied and ruled since a 1950 military invasion.
‘If the IOC has any respect in itself, the first thing it needs to do is drop the Tibet part of the relay,’ Tenzin Dorjee, Deputy Director of Students for a Free Tibet said.
Tenzin Dorjee was speaking in Olympia a day before the Beijing Olympics torch-lighting ceremony in the birthplace of the ancient Games and the start of the torch relay.
Tibetan activists have pledged to stage protests tomorrow as hundreds of police patrol the streets of the small town for fear of any disruptions to the widely televised ceremony and the start of the relay.
‘Carrying China's bloodstained torch through Tibet where we are seeing evidence of discontent would be adding insult to 50 years of injury,’ Tenzin Dorjee added.
The IOC has approved the Games torch relay that includes Tibet and the peak of Mount Everest.
IOC President Jacques Rogge said although the IOC was not a political organisation the Games would bring positive change to China.
Dalai Lama accused of trying to upset Olympics
Meanwhile China has accused the Dalai Lama of trying to take the Olympic Games ‘hostage’ over Tibet, as a new official toll of those injured in the unrest in and near the Himalayan region topped 700.
Major Chinese papers carried a lengthy opinion piece warning that the ‘Dalai Lama clique’ would inevitably fail to achieve its alleged goal of independence for Tibet.
‘In 2008, all the world's people are looking forward to the Olympics, but the Dalai Lama clique aims to take the Games hostage and force the Chinese government to yield on the “Tibetan independence” issue,’ the article said.
Meanwhile Tibet's Beijing-appointed administrative leader Qiangba Puncog said ‘secessionist forces’ had to be defeated in the region to ensure the success of the Summer Games in August.
Protests that began nearly two weeks ago on the anniversary of a failed 1959 Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule erupted into deadly violence on 14 March in the regional capital Lhasa.
Riots then spread from the Himalayan region into other parts of China with significant ethnic Tibetan populations.
Yesterday China raised its official death toll from the rioting in Lhasa from 13 to 19. Tibet's government-in-exile in northern India has put the death toll from the region and neighbouring Chinese provinces at 99.
