Tibetan Information Office (TIO) is based in Canberra.

Update on Tibet Demonstrations, 24 April 2008

22 April 2008: Rebgong (Ch: Tongren) County, Malho “Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture,” Qinghai province-Chinese authorities using contradictory tactics to spoil image of Tibetan people

At Rongpo monastery, Rebkong County, Chinese armed forces barged into the chamber of the protective deity (a small room where the monastery?s deity statue is housed). Often such rooms serve as a safe place where hunters and poachers give up their hunting weapons while vowing not to hunt any more.

From the monastery chamber the Chinese armed forces took the knives, bows and arrows and placed it outside the monastery. Pictures were then taken which will be used for propaganda purposes of presenting a false picture of Tibetans.

In a village nearby Rongpo monastery, Chinese armed forces confiscated explosives from a few families. However, Tibetan farmers actually use the explosives to ward off extreme weather, especially hail storms that often ruin the farmers? crops. In fact the concerned town offices themselves provide the explosives to the farmers so the current act of confiscating the explosives is nothing but contradictory and provocative.