NEW YORK (AFP) — Several hundred Tibetan activists marched though New York Monday calling for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics and urging the United Nations to listen to their appeals for independence from China.
Waving Tibetan flags and banners reading "China out of Tibet Now!" and dragging a Chinese flag along the ground, marchers chanted anti-Chinese slogans accusing Beijing of genocide in the Himalayan region.
"We are here to commemorate the 49th anniversary of the Tibetan national uprising and also to ask people to boycott the Olympics," said Tsering Palden, president of the Tibetan Youth Congress, one of the groups at Monday's march.
"China is using the Olympic Games to legitimize their illegal occupation of Tibet," he added. The marchers later congregated at a square near UN headquarters, urging the world body to hear their demands for independence.
Organizers claimed a turnout of more than 1,000 people.
The protest came as marchers in India began a trek to Tibet and as the Tibetans' spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, attacked China's human rights record, accusing it of "unimaginable and gross violations" in his Himalayan homeland.
The Dalai Lama said August's Beijing Olympics presented the international community with a golden opportunity to reprimand China -- which has ruled Tibet since 1951 -- over its treatment of Tibetans.
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