Sussex Express (UK), Friday March 26 1999

Lewes MP Norman Baker displayed a Tibetan flag in the House of Commons on Friday. And he told fellow MPs: 'I am committing a simple act which, if I were in Lhasa, would make me subject to arbitrary arrest, imprisonment and torture.'

And he continued: 'March 10 was the 40th anniversary of the uprising in Lhasa when the Chinese finally made clear their intention to rule Tibet with a rod of iron.

'Since 1959 thousands of Tibetans have been killed, imprisoned and tortured for no other reason than that they are Tibetan.

'Treasures from Tibet, especially from the monasteries, were looted and removed to China, in the same way as the Nazi Government in Germany behaved towards countries that it had invaded.'

Mr Baker said that the UK had an historic relationship with Tibet that gave it a moral duty to do what it could to help its people.

Derek Fatchett, Foreign Office Minister, said: 'I congratulate the honourable member for Lewes on raising this issue and the way in which he puts his arguments.

'I thank him for bringing to the House his concerns and those of others. I think he and I share very much the same agenda.'

He said the Government had not abandoned Tibet. It would continue to express its concerns and raise many of the issues to which Mr Baker had referred.

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