Pelosi's Tibetan comments attacked

BEIJING, March 24 (UPI) -- China's Xinhua called U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's comments on the Tibet protests hypocritical, saying they ignored the actions of the rioters.

A commentary carried by the official news agency said Pelosi, D-Calif., "condemned China's legitimate actions against violence in Tibet but turned a blind eye to merciless rioters."

During her visit last Friday with the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama in Dharamshala on her India trip, Pelosi was critical of the Chinese action against Tibetan protesters and was quoted as saying if freedom loving people of the world didn't speak against China's oppression, "we have lost all moral authority to speak on behalf of human rights anywhere in the world."

The Xinhua commentary said Pelosi lost her own "moral authority" to speak about human rights when she acted as a "defender of arsonists, looters and killers," adding she "became a muckraker of her own hypocrisy" when she "pompously condemned China" while "enjoying the hospitality of the orchestrators of the Lhasa riots."

It went on to say "human rights police" like Pelosi "are habitually bad-tempered and ungenerous when it comes to China, refusing to check their facts and find out the truth of the case."