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Locals watch Chinese soldiers in riot gear walk past the main square in Sichuan Province. China said 19 people died in riots in the Tibetan capital last week. -- PHOTO: REUTERS
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PARIS - WORLD leaders, rights groups and sports personalities condemned China's policies in Tibet, a day after protests disrupted the torch lighting ceremony for the Beijing Olympic games.
As the Olympic torch began its world tour on Tuesday, Beijing faced a fresh wave of international criticism continued against China's crackdown on Tibet, a day after protests marred lighting ceremonies for the Beijing Games.
In Paris, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner described as intolerable China's crackdown in Tibet, which the Tibetan government-in-exile said had killed some 140 people to date.
'This repression is not tolerable,' Mr Kouchner told Europe 1 radio on Tuesday, even as he ruled out a French boycott of the Olympics.
'Nobody, including the Dalai Lama wants a boycott of the Olympic Games,' he said, referring to the Tibetan spiritual leader, adding he did not want to be 'more Tibetan than the Dalai Lama.'
France's secretary of state for human rights Rama Yade said she would 'gladly' meet with the Dalai Lama should he visit France.
'The doors of our country will always be open to him,' Mr Yade told the Le Figaro daily in an interview published on Tuesday.
On Monday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged China to show restraint, in a letter to his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao - a response that some French newspapers characterised as too little and too late.
Two polls on Monday suggested that most French wanted their leaders to stay away from the opening Olympic ceremonies, though only a minority backed a sporting boycott.
French swimming champion Alain Bernard, fresh from his two world records - and two gold medals - from the European Swimming Championships, said a political boycott of the opening ceremony would send an important message.
Meanwhile in New York, Human Rights Watch argued the Olympic torch should not pass through Tibet as part of its 130-day world odyssey to Beijing.
'The Olympic torch should not be turned into a smokescreen to cover up human rights abuses,' HRW's Asia advocacy director Sophie Richardson said in a statement.
A series of protests at China's crackdown in Tibet disrupted Monday's torch-lighting ceremonies at the site of the ancient Olympic games, Olympia, in western Greece.
Three members of the press watchdog group Reporters Sans Frontieres (Reporters Without Borders, RSF) unfurled a flag urging an Olympic boycott.
Later, on Olympia's main street, 10 Tibetan activists, shouted slogans against China's rule in Tibet and tried to block the town's main street.
Although there appears to be little appetite among world leaders for a formal boycott of the games, there were increasing signs of concern at the violence - and support for Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
In Washington, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said the violence in Tibet was 'not acceptable.'
She urged Chinese authorities on Monday to talk to the Dalai Lama as the 'only policy that is sustainable in Tibet.' British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has already announced he would meet the Dalai Lama when he visits London in May.
Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne, has also announced he would meet him and has also said he would not attend the Games.
China reacted angrily to the torch-lighting protests, with a foreign ministry spokesman on Tuesday describing them as 'shameful and unpopular.'
And Singapore backed Beijing's handling of the unrest in Tibet, saying it was 'opposed to the politicisation of the Olympics.'
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez meanwhile said that international outrage against China's protests in Tibet is part of a US plan to weaken its up-and-coming Asian rival. -- AFP
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