Chinese Supremo President Xi Jinxing is on a two day visit to the Czech Republic where they are said to strengthen the bilateral trade relations as well as strategic relations, the event has been overwhelmingly stained by Free Tibet protests by pro-Tibet activists of the country.
Czech President Milos Zeman welcomed Mr. Xi to Prague city to forge stronger ties between the two countries calling it to be a new start for the country, the event has invited enough of protests to stain the expected grand ceremony of the historic first ever visit by a Chinese president to the country.
On the day of arrival of Mr. Xi, pro-Tibet demonstrators put up a giant picture of His Holiness the Dalai Lama with late Czech president Vaclav Havel in a park next the road leading to the airport.
The pro-Beijing supporters and pro-Tibet support got into a scuffle when the Xi supporters the picture of the Dalai Lama with giant Chinese flags. Police had to intervene the situation according to reports.
The Mixed Czech-Chinese Chamber of Mutual Cooperation paid to put up flags of Czech and China on the lamp posts along road between the airport and city centre along which Xi was to travel in the city. The flags have been criticised by many people for displaying it in a communist era style where pro-Soviet banners used to be displayed.
However, the pro-Tibet activists replaced the Chinese flags with Tibetan flags which led to the arrest of over a dozen activists for doing that. The Chinese flags put up have been constantly attacked since they were put up few days before the visit. A dozen of the flags have been stained with blue ink.
“The arrested people did not obey police orders, and some of them chained themselves to the lampposts. The police had to call the firefighters who took the protesters down from the lamp posts” police spokeswoman Andrea Zoulová said.
The Czech people have been constantly been vocal of the Tibet issue against the Chinese authorities for denying the basic human rights to the Tibetans inside Tibet since the violent annexation of Tibet by the Chinese forces since 1951. His Holiness the Dalai Lama is revered highly by them for his messages of peace and non-violence. In a sharp contrast to the current president Zeman, late Vaclav Havel is a personal friend of His Holiness.
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