Dalai Lama blasts Chinese 'repression' on France visit

0 Comments | AFP, August, 2008

ROQUEREDONDE, France (AFP) — The Dalai Lama denounced Chinese repression in Tibet when he met French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner Friday on a trip to France that has fuelled tensions between Paris and Beijing.

His French interpreter, Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard, said "His Holiness (told Kouchner).... that there is a certain form of brutal repression that continues parallel to the Olympic Games."

The only way China can "regain its respectability in the international community" was the "march towards democracy," the Dalai Lama said, according to Ricard, who attended the meeting.

Kouchner, who made no public comment except to say the Dalai Lama was "always welcome in France," was attending the inauguration of a Buddhist temple by the exiled Tibetan...