Great news!

All three activists who were detained by the Beijing police have been released after two hours of questioning. They have arrived safely in Hong Kong (I’m talking with them on a conference call now) and are currently handling media requests.

Here’s a quick rundown of some of the early press and blog coverage of the banner hang in Beijing denouncing China’s Tibet railway as “Designed to Destroy.”

Joseph Kahn of the New York Times has a fantastic article in the International Herald Tribune that does great justice to the objections Tibet supporters have raised to the launch of the railway.

But Tibetan and foreign critics say the railway benefits Han Chinese, China’s dominant ethnic group, at the expense of Tibetan natives. They argue that enhanced transportation links will accelerate a trend of Han- led economic development and smother Tibet’s ancient spiritual culture, while undermining the pristine natural environment of its highlands.

“The overwhelming opinion among Tibetans is that the railway will consolidate Chinese control and bring in huge numbers of Han Chinese,” said Tenzin Tsundue, an independent Tibetan writer and activist who lives in India.

“It will mean less employment and more destruction for Tibetans, not more opportunity,” he said.

On Friday, three women from the United States, Canada and Britain were detained briefly after they climbed through a second-floor window at Beijing’s main train station and unfurled a black-and-white banner that read, “China’s Tibet Railway, Designed to Destroy.”

Kahn goes on to address some of the underlying signs that the railway is an ill-fated tool that the Chinese government is using to repress the Tibetan people and culture.

But the event is being tightly controlled by Chinese officials to ensure favorable coverage. They handpicked 40 foreign journalists to ride the first train. Other news organizations, including The New York Times, that purchased train tickets independently were denied permits to enter Tibetan territory.

Even at the official price tag of $4.1 billion, the railway is difficult to justify in economic terms. Tibet’s total gross domestic product in 2005 was $3.12 billion, so the payoff for the railway in terms of boosting economic activity would appear to lie decades in the future if it ever comes.

Also, foreign engineers who have been involved with elements of the project, but asked not to be identified because they did not wish to offend their Chinese sponsors, say the railway will require heavy expenditures on maintenance and may be difficult to run for more than a decade without an extensive overhaul.

Tibetan activists say they do not oppose the railway in principle but argue that it was conceived mainly to enhance China’s economic and military control over the Tibetan region. They say it will also aid Chinese exploitation of mineral resources in the Tibetan highlands.

Even as they promote the rail line, Chinese officials still focus heavily on combating what they call Tibetan separatism, especially the resilient loyalty there to the Dalai Lama. Zhang Qingli, recently appointed as the Communist Party’s top official in Tibet, told party leaders there in May that they were engaged in “a fight to the death” against the Dalai Lama, Tibet Daily reported.

And there lies the crux of the problem. Tibetans are not opposed to development, but demand sensible development that will actually benefit them. China, on the other hand, has gone to earth-defying lengths to smother the undying desire for freedom within Tibetans. The railway is about control and domination, everything else is just propaganda.
Both the New York Times and Washington Post are running an updated version of Alex Olesen’s AP story that talks about the detention of three free Tibet activists in Beijing.

The Telegraph in the UK has a more detailed story about the action, thanks to work by Free Tibet Campaign to get them details on Katie Mallin, one of the activists arrested in the action.

Human rights activist-blogger Cooper of Wonderland or Not has posted on the action. She reminds her readers that, “The world is freer when everyone is free. Remember everyone here is not free either no matter what you might think.” Amen, Cooper.


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