"Canadians are entitled to truth about Tibet" -- Montreal

　　By Xinhua writers Zhao Qing, Yang Shilong

　　MONTREAL, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- Dozens of Chinese Canadians and Chinese students studying in Montreal‘s universities gathered Saturday afternoon outside the downtown Bell Center to protest the visit of Dalai Lama.

　　Dalai, who flew into exile from China in 1959 after a failed armed rebellion aimed to restore Tibet‘s feudal serfdom and split the region from China, has been visiting Canadian cities during the past week to give speeches.

　　The protestors said Dalai, who proclaims himself to be a "religious leader," has been in reality always engaging in political activities with the intention to split Tibet from China.

　　He has always painted a distorted picture about Tibet to his international audience, saying that the Chinese government has destroyed the Tibetan culture and language and the Tibetan people have no freedom of religion, which were "sheer lying," said the protestors.

　　Since Tibet‘s serfdom was eliminated by the central government, people in Tibet have enjoyed gradual and fast improvement of living quality, and their religious freedom and cultural traditions have been respected and supported with earnest efforts from all levels of governments, they said.

　　Holding signs saying "Dalai, Stop Lying," "Dalai Lama is a hypocrite," "Dalai Lama=Serfdom," the protestors tried to tell Canadians that what Dalai is saying about Tibet is not at all the true picture.

　　"Canadians are entitled to know the truth of Tibet," the protestors said while distributing books, brochures and CDs about Tibet.

　　A lot of Canadians may not realize that while Dalai talks about peace, compassion wherever he goes, he never talks about the days when he served as the chief representative of the ruling serf owners in Tibet, when he never had any compassion for the serfs, said Liu Zheng, who works at a Chinese language media in Montreal.

　　We love our country and we steadfastly support the unity of our country, Meng Fan, a third-grade Concordia University, said.

　　We hope Dalai respect the unity of China and stop any activities that are aimed to split China, another student Gu Yujie said, noting Chinese throughout the world are now celebrating the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People‘s Republic of China.

　　A lot of Canadian audience of Dalai are only there out of curiosity. They do not have personal experience with China and their knowledge about Tibet and China come from the media, whereas a lot of reports in Canada are not depicting a whole and object picture of the truth, said Sylvia Yang.

　　"We used to live in China and we now still visit China from time to time. We know what the situation is in China. It is our responsibility to tell Canadians the truth about China. We have the right to tell Canadians the other side of Dalai," she said.