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A Paris-based media rights group says the deputy editor of a Chinese newspaper has been fired for writing an editorial about Tibet.
Reporters Without Borders says Chang Ping was fired unfairly after writing editorials about Tibetan protests for the Nanfang Dushi Bao (Southern Metropolis Weekly) newspaper.
The group says Chang Ping's removal shows that Chinese media are only allowed to present views that support repression in Tibet.
Chang Ping has been criticized in Internet chatrooms by nationalists, and praised by supporters of free speech.
In an April editorial, Chang asked whether Chinese media would be allowed to discuss the Tibet issue more openly.
Official Chinese media coverage of the Tibetan protests continues to accuse the Dalai Lama and Tibetan exiles of orchestrating separatist protests and violence.
On the day the Dalai Lama's envoys met officials from the Chinese Communist Party's United Front Work Department, Chinese media reported on an exhibit on Tibetan history sponsored by the department. The exhibit purportedly shows Tibet's backward, feudal society under the Dalai Lama and the region's progress after liberation and reform by Chinese Communists.
China has blocked foreign journalists from visiting areas of recent Tibetan unrest so that they might confirm conflicting reports from the Chinese government and Tibetan exiles. Two official media tours to Tibetan areas were disrupted by monks who contradicted the Chinese government's claims about the protests.
China says 18 civilians and one policeman died when protests turned violent on March 14. But the Tibetan government-in-exile says Chinese security forces killed more than 200 Tibetan protesters, many of them in Lhasa following the riot.
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