Information from Tibet difficult to get

NEW DELHI, March 26 (UPI) -- China has effectively clamped down on information flow from Tibet including e-mails and cell phone calls, Tibetan exiles in India say.

It was these resources the exiles had mostly relied upon since March 10 for accounts of the Chinese military crackdown on Tibetan protesters, the Financial Times reported.

The report said about 120,000 Tibetan exiles now live in India. Their leader, the Dalai Lama, also lives in India since escaping from Tibet after a failed 1959 rebellion.

The exiles told the Times since the information clampdown and foreign media was stopped from visiting Tibet, e-mails and phone calls mostly are going unanswered, while Chinese authorities continue to arrest the demonstrators.

The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in India, citing previous phone calls, reports and photographs, claim a lot more than the official Chinese figure have been killed.

Center director Urgen Tenzin told the Times even when phone calls to Tibet are answered, "people are saying, 'Don't call. It's too dangerous.'"

It was modern technology that helped the world find out how the military junta suppressed pro-democracy protests last September in Myanmar, formerly Burma.