Nov. 6 – The Indian government has refused to permit foreign journalists to cover the Dalai Lama’s visit to the Tawang Monastery in Arunachal Pradesh.

Requests for permits allowing foreign correspondents to travel to Arunachal Pradesh state were declined, and the government revoked passes previously given to four of them, including two Associated Press journalists. Foreigners require special government permission to visit the mountainous state, which has recently been at the center of border frictions between India and China. The monastery is just a matter of a few hundred yards from the border with Tibet.

“We are incredibly surprised and disappointed to learn that reporters’ visas to Arunachal Pradesh have been canceled ahead of the Dalai Lama’s visit,” said Heather Timmons, president of the New Delhi-based Foreign Correspondents’ Club. China has strongly opposed the Tibetan spiritual leader’s visit to a Buddhist monastery in the Arunachal Pradesh town of Tawang beginning Sunday.

Although relations between India and China have improved in recent years, tensions have flared from time to time because of sharpening economic rivalries, lingering bitterness over a 1962 border war and unresolved border issues, and unrest in Tibet. Last week, the Dalai Lama said China was over politicizing his travels, adding his decisions on where to go were spiritual in nature, not political. China has claimed that the Dalai Lama is deliberately creating conflict between it and India.

Related Reading:
Tawang Monastery