A peaceful protest is underway outside the Chinese Embassy in Dublin to mark the 60th anniversary of Tibet’s uprising day.
The Tibetan Community of Ireland wants to highlight the suffering of the Tibetan people due to the Chinese occupation of their country.
A similar protest will be held outside the GPO on O’Connell Street at 12pm, where Senator David Norris will make a speech.
China has defended its often-criticized rule in Tibet 60 years after the Dalai Lama fled into exile, saying those who question its policies are merely showing their anti-Chinese bias.
In India’s capital, New Delhi, at least 3,000 Tibetans marched about two miles through the center of the city carrying Tibetan and Indian flags.
Hundreds of Tibetans and Taiwanese rallied in Taipei, the capital of the self-governing island democracy that China also claims as its territory.
China’s official Xinhua News Agency said in an editorial that economic growth, increases in lifespan and better education in the region refute the claims of critics that Tibetans suffer oppression from Beijing.
Another editorial, in the Communist Party-run Tibet Daily, attacked the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s traditional Buddhist leader, for what it said are his efforts to “sow chaos in Tibet”.
His “separatist plots are doomed to total failure,” the paper said.
The Dalai Lama has been living in a northern Indian town since he fled from Tibet after a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule. Beijing accuses him of seeking to separate Tibet from China, which he denies.