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Tibet official denies ban on foreign tourists

AFP

Tibetans gather to pray at a temple in Lhasa, capital of Tibet region on 21 September 2009. Tibet’s tourism administration on Thursday denied reports that foreigners had been barred from the region amid a security crackdown for China’s National Day on 1 October.File photo/AFP/China

Tibet’s tourism administration on Thursday denied reports that foreigners had been barred from the region amid a security crackdown for China’s National Day on 1 October.

The denial by a spokesman for the Tibet Autonomous Region Tourism Bureau came two days after staff at the bureau’s branch in the capital Lhasa and other tour agents said they were told to suspend issuing permits to foreigners.

“There’s no such notice at all. Foreign travellers are welcome in China. They can enter Tibet during the National Day holidays,” Liao Lisheng, spokesman for the regional tourism bureau, told AFP by phone from Lhasa.

“Those reports were not true. We just told the travel agencies to adjust their arrangements in order to avoid too many people coming at the same time.

“But we never said that we would suspend issuing passes to foreign travellers,” he said.

Foreign tourists must obtain special permission from China’s government to enter Tibet, the remote Himalayan region where resentment against Chinese control has festered for decades.

China has previously banned foreign tourists from visiting Tibet, including after deadly anti-Chinese riots that erupted in Lhasa and across the Tibetan plateau in March 2008, triggering a massive security clampdown.

Beijing also barred foreigners from going there in March this year during the tense 50th anniversary of a failed uprising against China that sent the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, into exile.

Staff at the official Lhasa Tourism Bureau had told AFP on Tuesday that the regional tourism administration had sent out a notice banning permits for foreigners until after 8 October.

Travel agents reached by AFP who handle Tibet tours also said they had received the notice.

China has already taken a number of other measures to tighten security, especially in Beijing, ahead of National Day, which marks 60 years since Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

A report by Xinhua news agency on Thursday also quoted Wang Songping, deputy chief of the regional bureau, as calling the reports of a travel ban on foreigners “untrue”.

The Xinhua report said tour operators in Lhasa had arranged trips for the National Day holiday period for 36 travel groups, which included 50 foreign tourists.

Copyright © 2009 AFP

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