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今日gazette终于有了周日集会报道如下:
Thousands rally for China
Parliament hill. Demonstrators show support for Olympics
Maria Cook and Scott Cressman, Canwest News Service
Published: 6 hours ago
A pro-China demonstration on Parliament Hill yesterday attracted about 5,000 Chinese-Canadians from Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto eager to show support for the troubled Beijing Olympics.
"Olympics is nothing to do with politics," said Jeremy Zhang, a 37-year-old Ottawa chemist who emigrated from China in 2002.
"I think our country deserves the Olympics. Sports is a peaceful event to join all people together."
A group of Chinese community associations organized the event in the wake of chaotic protests disrupting the world relay of the Olympic torch. Protesters in Paris, London and San Francisco have condemned human rights abuses in China, including recent violent confrontations in Tibet.
Because of the Tibet controversy, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said he will not attend the opening ceremony of the Olympics in August.
"We want the Canadian government to treat China fairly and to treat the Olympics in a sporting way," said University of Ottawa student Hong Chen. "Don't boycott it."
Amid a sea of red Chinese flags(一片红色海洋), the demonstrators said reports by Canadian and other Western media were biased and factually incorrect. It was Tibetan separatists who were responsible for violent riots and the deaths of civilians, they said.
The demonstration was billed as a show of support of "peace and the Olympic spirit," but it gave equal time to opposing the idea of Tibet independence.
"We don't want anyone separating from our country," said Ling Wang, a 30-year-old Toronto medical researcher.
Early in the afternoon, a dozen pro-Tibet protesters crashed the rally. The pro-China faction surrounded them, shouting accusations, said Nicole Demers, a volunteer with Friends of Tibet.
Police told the counter-protesters that they were not safe and moved the group down the street. The protesters, some splattered with fake blood or wearing gags, waved Tibetan flags there under police supervision.
"The tone was hateful and quite intimidating when there's a dozen Tibetans up against a thousand Chinese," said Russ Hillier, a Carleton University student who's part of Students for a Free Tibet.
"They wouldn't let us be 15 people voicing our opinion in a free country," Demers said.
"Really, what these protesters are saying is very similar to what the Chinese government is saying," Hillier said. Their allegiances are not to "the ideals of freedom and justice that Canada is built on."
One of the rally's speakers was Henry Lu, chairman of the Chinese Community Association. The excited crowd punctuated his sentences with raucous cheers and flag-waving.
"Open your eyes. If you really want to know China, go there," Lu said. "Don't say things from outside."
China has made real improvements, he said, but Western media still judge the country too harshly.
Ottawa Citizen
Dalai Lama denounced, Page A14(最可气的是文章结尾竟然通知去A14看渥太华公民达赖喇嘛的发言)
文章是这样的:
'If violence becomes out of control my only option is to resign'(如果暴力发展到无法控制我只有辞职不干)
Emma Graham-Harrison, Reuters
Published: 6 hours ago
Chinese media denounced the Dalai Lama and his supporters yesterday as "anti-human rights," and branded top U.S. politician Nancy Pelosi as "the least popular person in China" for her stance on Tibet.
The belligerent commentaries by the official Xinhua news agency came the day after Beijing said nine Buddhist monks had been arrested for bombing a government building in Tibet.
A Tibetan source with strong contacts in its capital, Lhasa, said the city was swirling with reports of fresh clashes between monks and security forces at the important Drepung monastery.
Beijing has accused the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, of orchestrating March 14 riots in Lhasa and the unrest that followed in other ethnic Tibetan areas, as part of a bid for independence and to ruin the Olympic Games.
The Dalai Lama, 72, says he wants autonomy for Tibet, not a separate state, and denies he was behind the unrest, which China says killed 19 people. Exiled Tibetans give a far higher death toll.
The Dalai Lama told a news conference in Seattle yesterday he would resign as leader of Tibet's government in exile if violence in his homeland spread out of control.
"If violence becomes out of control then my only option is to resign," the Nobel peace laureate said. "If the majority of people commit violence, then I resign."
Xinhua earlier denounced the Dalai Lama as a sham and said he dreamed of restoring the Tibetan feudal system of serfdom.
China has gone on the offensive in the face of mounting international criticism of its handling of the deadly riots, wider unrest and a subsequent crackdown, which is clouding the run-up to the Olympic Games in August.
Beijing considers its Western critics, who have raised pressure on leaders to boycott the Games' opening ceremony and marred part of a global torch relay with chaotic protests, are unfairly mixing sports and politics.
In Dublin, Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern denied reports of a diplomatic row yesterday after China's ambassador walked out on a speech in which Environment Minister John Gormley accused China of human rights abuses in Tibet.
Television footage showed China's envoy to Ireland, Liu Biwei, conferring with an aide before walking out during a speech on Saturday night in which Gormley said Tibet had been "exploited and suppressed and suffered for too long." |
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