NEW DELHI (Sputnik) — Hundreds of Tibetan refugees have been coming in small groups to protest outside the embassy since early morning despite a heavy police presence in New Delhi’s Chanakyapuri area where the diplomatic mission is located. When police intervened to disperse the protesters, some of them lay on the ground and started chanting “we want freedom.”
Breaking: TYC activists storm the Chinese Embassy, Delhi to protest China's illegal occupation of #Tibet (h/t TYC) pic.twitter.com/wUscNgOBCZ
— Jigme (@JigmeUgen) 10 Март 2016
The activists were put inside a bus and reportedly driven to the outskirts of the city.
March 10 commemorates the Tibetan uprising of 1959 against the Chinese presence in the region. Following a crackdown on the independence movement, Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso was forced to flee to India.
China led a military assault on Tibet in 1950 which ended in the signing of the "Seventeen Point Agreement" with Tibetan leaders in 1951, giving Beijing control over the region's external affairs and establishing a military regime there. China believes that the region has been part of its territory for centuries.