DHARMSALA, India (AP) - Tibetan poet-activist Tenzin Tsundue may not be able to fly a "Free Tibet'' banner in India during a visit this month by the president of China, which has occupied Tibet since 1951.
Police have asked Tsundue not to leave the Indian town of Dharmsala during Chinese President Hu Jintao's four-day visit beginning Nov. 20.
Tibetan Buddhists' spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, has a government-in-exile in Dharmsala, where he settled after fleeing Tibet in 1959 following a failed uprising against Chinese rule.
Tsundue told The Associated Press he will be deported to Tibet if he leaves the town. "The superintendent of police in Dharmsala told me that he has orders directly from the home ministry of the Indian government in New Delhi,'' he said.
He also said police in New Delhi and Mumbai have also been keeping a watch on members of the Students for a Free Tibet organization. Tsundue, general secretary of "The Friends of Tibet'' group, has slipped past police twice in the past.
In 2002, he climbed scaffolding and waved a "Free Tibet'' banner outside a Mumbai hotel where China's then-Prime Minister Zhu Rongji was meeting top Indian business leaders.
Last year, Tsundue again embarrassed India by climbing a tower at the Indian Institute of Science in the southern city of Bangalore, where Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao was meeting a group of Indian scientists. He waved his banner and threw pamphlets asking China to free Tibet.
Since police gave Tsundue notice two days ago, a dozen officers have been watching him round-the-clock.
Tsundue said he has written to India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, asking him to "to facilitate an opportunity to take up the issues that concern all Tibetans with the Chinese president.''
"It is because of the lack of this access that I have been demonstrating on your streets, drawing world attention to the atrocities that Tibet is subjected to,'' he said in the letter. "If such an opportunity does not arise this time too, we will again be compelled to come out on the streets in large numbers to voice our anger and frustration.''
Tsundue also wrote about a recent incident in which Chinese border guards allegedly shot at a group of 75 Tibetan refugees as they tried to escape to neighboring Nepal. Footage of the incident, taken by a Romanian cameraman, triggered an international outcry.
Every year, thousands of Tibetans trek over Himalayan passes to reach Nepal and then its neighbor, India, where most head for Dharmsala.
Reports of arrests and ill-treatment by Chinese authorities are common. Tibetans living in exile say China is oppressing Tibetans and trying to destroy their culture and religion. - AP