This week Paul Bourke, Executive Officer of the Australia Tibet Council, joined a group of Parliamentarians, scholars and Tibet supporters from Australia, Taiwan and Japan for the Save Tibet Asia Pacific Forum. Read the full text of the forum’s resolution below.

The Dalai Lama’s Special Envoy Lodi Gyaltsen Gyari and Envoy Kelsang Gyaltsen, will arrive in China today for the formal seventh round of discussion with representatives of the Chinese leadership.
Sydney Morning Herald: “Dalai Lama calls for progress in talks”

Chinese authorities have announced they will resume formal dialogue with representatives of the Dalai Lama in ‘early July’ but are yet to give a precise date. However, recent statements by government officials, including during Sunday’s announcement, give little hope that Beijing is about to soften its stance on Tibet or enter into a more substantive round of dialogue.

Reporters Without Borders today accused China of breaking its promises to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) by preventing foreign journalists from freely covering the journey of the Olympic flame through Xinjiang and Tibet.

Sandals left behind after protest

The letter also urged Nepal’s new democratic government to resist any interference by Chinese authorities in its internal affairs, including efforts to restrict the democratic freedoms of the 20,000 Tibetans exiled in Nepal.

Over three months since the outbreak of protests in March, Tibet remains under media blackout with over one thousand Tibetan detainees unaccounted for and demonstrations continuing across many Tibetan areas.

With China insisting that it has restored ‘normalcy’ to Tibet, in this special report we take a look at the real situation on the ground in Tibet.

The Dalai Lama’s visit to Sydney last week came at a politically more significant time than any of his five previous visits to Australia- less than two months before the Beijing Olympics and following a period of unprecedented unrest across Tibetan areas and international concern over continuing human rights abuses. Uncertainty continues over the future of the Tibet-China dialogue, with no date announced for a seventh round of formal talks, originally expected to commence on 11 June, the day of His Holiness’s arrival in Sydney.

The Australia Tibet Council kept a daily blog of events during the visit, including commentary on any meetings with senior Australia political figures. See daily summaries below.

Day 5 - Sunday 15 June - Chenrezig Initiation
Day 4 - Saturday 14 June - Public Talk
Day 3 - Friday 13 June - Chinese Outreach
Day 2 - Thursday 12 June - Dalai Lama’s Press Conference
Day 1 - Wednesday 11 June - Dalai Lama Welcomed To Sydney

While most Australian Tibet supporters were either tucked up in bed or heading home from the Dalai Lama’s teaching in Sydney, a group of activists in Perth were on hand to remind the Foreign Minister of Australians’ concerns over Tibet before his meeting with the Dalai Lama.

On Tuesday the US and EU urged China “to take substantive steps to allow its citizens to enjoy internationally recognized human rights” and encouraged China and Tibet to “move forward with a substantive, constructive and results-oriented dialogue at an early date”. The statements were made in a joint declaration following the 2008 US-EU Summit.