India
has denied visa to three Chinese rights activists who were coming to India to
participate in a conference that started yesterday in Dharamsala, the seat of
the exiled Tibetan government in India.
The
four-day conference, 'Strengthening Our Alliance to Advance the Peoples' Dream:
Freedom, Justice, Equality and Peace', has been organized by a US based
pro-democracy outfit, ‘Citizen Power for China’, led by exiled Chinese rights
activist Yang Jianli, and is being attended by some 100 delegates from around
the world.
After
the row over the visa denial issue and its global media coverage and a widespread
outrage, the organizers of the conference have decided to say no to any sort of
media coverage. Media has not been allowed to the venue. Participants would not
talk to media about the conference. And there would be no press releases.
So,
in a way, nothing would come out.
And
that is, again a bad publicity for India, after the visa U-turn issue.
Because,
as reports say, the conference is being attended by many Chinese dissidents whom
China would go to any extent to see behind bars or execute, i.e., Tibetans,
Uighurs, Falun Gong members and Taiwanese. The same was confirmed by Dolkun
Isa, a Germany based Uighur dissident from China, with whom this whole visa
U-turn row began.
An
open media interface of the conference could have told the world that India was
indeed right when it decided to cancel visa of Dolkun Isa, Lu Jinghua and Ray
Wong on technical grounds and it was not under the Chinese pressure, as the
message has gone, in India, and globally. Democracy is long dead in China and
human rights are as flimsy as Chinese leaders’ promises for political reforms.
A discussion on it in Dharamsala and its open media coverage would have helped dispel
the notions that India bowed under Chinese pressure and cancelled visas. After
all, it is not that no Chinese dissident is participating in the Dharamsala
conference.
The
coverage in international media, first on India granting visa to Dolkun Isa, against
whom aC China influenced Interpol Red Corner Notice is out, and then
withdrawing it in the 11th hour, is a testimony to that.
National
and international media, which was praising India for issuing visa to Dolkun,
drawing parallels with the Chinese veto in the United Nations on declaring Masood
Azhar a terrorist, started mocking India when India cancelled Dolkun’s visa.
Though,
on its part, India said it was on technical grounds, as Isa had applied for a
tourist electronic visa whereas he was coming to attend a conference that
requires additional clearance from the Home Ministry, and that India had taken
this decision unilaterally and there was no Chinese hand in it, the same day,
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement that said China indeed
had approached India with its reservations on visa to Dolkun Isa.
To
continue..