February 06, 2013
The Voice of America has denied Chinese allegations that VOA is encouraging Tibetan protesters to set themselves on fire.
The allegations were made by the official China Daily newspaper and a program broadcast by Chinese state television, CCTV. VOA Director David Ensor said the allegations were totally false and called on China Daily and CCTV to retract their stories.
The CCTV program included a segment showing a man in a hospital bed identified as a Tibetan who tried to self-immolate but failed. The man was depicted saying he set himself on fire after watching VOA.
“I did it after watching VOA,” he told the CCTV interviewer. “I saw the photographs of self-immolators being commemorated. They were treated like heroes.”
VOA Director Ensor said the allegations were “totally false,” adding that the self-immolations are tragic and a sign of distress in Tibet. “We report them. We certainly don’t encourage them,” Ensor said.
Ensor also noted that the CCTV program accused VOA of using secret code to send messages to people inside Tibet at the direction of the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama – a charge he called “absurd.”
VOA’s Tibetan Service chief, Losang Gyatso, also denied that any news reports were influenced by the Dalai Lama or the Tibetan government in exile. He noted that VOA Tibetan’s news reports often present the views of Chinese officials.
VOA has provided extensive coverage of the nearly 100 Tibetans who have self-immolated since 2009.
