(TibetanReview.net, Dec11, 2015) – China has condemned the Dalai Lama for calling for dialogue with the Islamic State terrorists, saying it was like calling for “consulting with a tiger for its hide”. “He knows that there is no foundation for dialogue between the international community and the IS, whose fundamentalist ideology is characterized by zero tolerance toward any individual or state in disagreement with its extremist doctrines,” said a commentary carried by China’s official chinadaily.com.cn Dec 10.
Also, Global Times, an international edition of China’s party mouthpiece People’s Daily on Dec 10 quoted Zhu Weiqun, chairman of the ethnic and religious affairs committee of the top advisory body to China’s parliament, as saying, “By saying, ‘listen, understand and respect’ them, it exposes, in his very bones, his sympathy or endorsement for IS.”
China was referring to the fact that in an interview reported by the Italian newspaper La Stampa, the Dalai Lama had said the IS harms Islam through its intolerance, but that “dialogue” with the terrorists was vital. “One has to listen, to understand, to have respect for the other person, regardless. There is no other way,” he was quoted as saying.
“Islam is a religion of peace. Those who are intolerant harm their own faith and their own brothers,” the Tibetan spiritual leader was further quoted as saying in Bangaluru, southern India, where he was taking part in a seminar on peace and the economy.
ISIS is the most systematically brutal of all terrorist groups thus far. It has carried out executions, abductions, rapes and enslaved people of other faiths in areas under its control in Iraq and Syria and also conducts terror operations abroad.