LHASA, The Chinese paramilitary police who usually patrol Tibet’s often tense capital went to work in black and yellow track suits last week instead of their green uniforms. The occasion: a government-arranged visit by a group of foreign journalists.

Sixteen months after an uprising prompted a harsh Chinese crackdown, the four-day glimpse given to 16 foreign journalists showed official nervousness about Tibet - which has unsteadily weathered nearly six decades of Chinese rule - and how hard the government is trying to show that the uneasy region has returned to normal. Read full story

On 1 July 2009 a group of six Federal Parliamentarians will travel to Dharamsala, the Indian base of the Dalai Lama and the heart of the Tibetan community in exile. This is the first such visit by an Australian Parliamentary delegation. Ngodup Gyaltsen of the Canberra-based Tibet Information Office and Dr. Simon Bradshaw of the Australia Tibet Council will accompany the group. Read more…

Tibetans worldwide have expressed support and solidarity with the Chinese democracy movement on the 20th Anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre. Chinese authorities have clamped down heavily in Beijing, rounding up dissidents, blocking internet sites and placing a massive security cordon around the square itself. Read more…

Melbourne Town Hall has been hoodwinked into hosting a photo exhibition funded and organized by the Chinese Government. ATC has revealed that the booking for the exhibition, titled “Tibet’s Past and Present”, was made under false pretences by a Chinese-Australian businessman with strong links to the Chinese Communist Party. Read ATC’s media release

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From the Central Tibetan Administration
The family of the four Tibetans who were given death sentence and one who was sentenced to life imprisonment by a Chinese court for taking part in last year’s protests in Tibet are deeply concerned as their whereabouts remain unknown since the verdict was announced on 8 April. Read more…

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) today released its annual report, noting amid numerous other concerns about religious freedom in the People’s Republic of China that “In Tibetan Buddhist areas, religious freedom conditions may be worse now than at any time since the Commission’s inception.” Read more…

A Chinese court in Tibet has sentenced a Tibetan woman to death with a two-year reprieve and two others to long jail terms for setting fires that killed six people in the Lhasa riot last year, Chinese state media reported on Tuesday, 21 April. Read more…

On 15 April, six highly respected international figures - Vaclav Havel, Prince Hassan Bin Talal, Desmond Tutu, Vartan Gregorian, Andre Glucksmann and Yohei Sasakawa - appealed to the Chinese Government to “overturn the decision to execute two more Tibetan protesters and open its courts to international scrutiny”. Australia Tibet Council is approaching eminent and influential Australians, including politicians, laureates and academics, requesting they add their names as supporters of the appeal. Read the letter