China says it will try to silence the Dalai Lama in Tibetan homeland
Government says it will confiscate illegal satellite dishes and increase monitoring of online content to keep his voice quiet in his homeland
Beijing aims to stamp out the voice of exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama in Tibet by ensuring that his "propaganda" is not received by anyone on the internet, television or other means, a top official said.
China has tried, with varying degrees of success, to prevent Tibetans from listening to or watching programmes broadcast from outside the country, or accessing information about the Dalai Lama and the exiled government on the internet.
But many Tibetans are still able to access such news, either via illegal satellite televisions or by skirting Chinese internet restrictions.
The Dalai Lama's picture and his teachings are also smuggled into Tibet, but at great personal risk.
Writing in the ruling Communist Party's influential journal , the latest issue of which was received by subscribers yesterday , Tibet's party chief Chen Quanguo said that the government would ensure only its voice is heard.
"Strike hard against the reactionary propaganda of the splittists from entering Tibet," Chen wrote in the magazine, whose name means "seeking truth".
The government will achieve this by confiscating illegal satellite dishes, increasing monitoring of online content and making sure all telephone and internet users are registered using their real names, he added.
"Work hard to ensure that the voice and image of the party is heard and seen over the vast expanses (of Tibet) ... and that the voice and image of the enemy forces and the Dalai clique are neither seen nor heard," Chen wrote in the journal.
It said that the government would step up propaganda including government Tibetan news portals and make sure no less than 95 per cent of prime air time in TV and radio and prominent pages of newspapers in Tibet would propagate stable and good lives under the Communist Party rule.
It would also step up engaging ethnic Tibetan writers, actors and singers to make sure their support to the party, as well as boosting forces to monitor the internet.
China calls the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Dalai Lama a "wolf in sheep's clothing" who seeks to use violent methods to establish an independent Tibet.
The Dalai Lama, who fled to India after a failed uprising in 1959, says he simply wants genuine autonomy for Tibet and denies espousing violence.
Chen said the party would seek to expose the Dalai Lama's "hypocrisy and deception and his "reactionary plots".
China has long defended its iron-fisted rule in Tibet.
