South Africa: Uproar over visa refusal for Dalai Lama

Image via Wikipedia

by Ismail Dhorat

The South African government has denied the Dalai Lama a visa to attend a Peace Conference that will be held in South Africa. The government decision has sparked an uproar online on Twitter, Facebook and blogs.

The government's stance on this has been:

The Dalai Lama’s presence at the conference would have distracted the world’s attention from South Africa’s hosting of the World Cup and drawn it instead into the fraught relations between the Dalai Lama and China, one of the country’s most important trading partners. Thabo Masebe, a government spokesman, said the Tibetan leader’s presence “would not be in South Africa’s best interests.”

Ironically, by refusing the visa application the spotlight is now focused on exactly what they are trying to avoid. A Google search for the statement above results has over 2000 results, 100's of twitter posts and several facebook groups have been created to protest it.

Global Voices Online » South Africa: Uproar over visa refusal for Dalai Lama

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