25. Mar 2009
China block footage of Tibet violence on YouTube
(Times Online) The release of video images of police beating Tibetans as they lie tied up on the ground seems to have prompted China's censors to block access to YouTube. The video, released by the CTA in Dharamsala, quickly made its way on to YouTube, which has been accessible in China since it was barred briefly before the Beijing Olympics. China has not confirmed that it has blocked the website, but said that the video issued from Dharamsala was false. Xinhua said that the footage had been spliced together from various sources. The video contains three sets of pictures. The first shows paramilitary police storming the Jokhang Temple during a riot in 1988, The second shows paramilitary police dragging Tibetans along the ground after they have been arrested. Their hands and wrists tightly trussed with rope, the Tibetans can be heard moaning as paramilitary hit them with sticks. The final part of the video shows a young Tibetan man identified as Tendar being treated for open wounds and sores by hospital doctors. A statement from the Tibetan exiles says he had been fired at, burned with cigarettes and severely beaten with an electric baton before his wounds were wrapped in polythene and left to rot. When he reached a civilian hospital, doctors cut away 2.5kg of rotten flesh. He died on 19 June 2008.