Special report: Tibet: Its Past and Present

    NEW DELHI, May 6 (Xinhua) -- "I have seen an economically-developed Tibet and the Tibetans are living and working in peace and contentment. China's policy in Tibet is very successful," said Seema Mustafa, a renowned Indian political commentator.

    The opinion and reporting in some western media is grossly unfair to China on the Tibet issue, Mustafa, the former political editor and New Delhi Bureau Chief of The Asian Age newspaper published in India, told Xinhua in a recent exclusive interview.

    Mustafa, who visited Tibet late last year, said she could not sense any alleged restrictions on the Tibetans' religious freedom as the monasteries she visited were full of religious Tibetans who were devoutly doing Buddhist services.

    Now editor of the newly-launched Indian magazine Covert, Mustafa voiced concerns over the gravely distorted coverage of the riots in Tibet in March by some Western media outlets, including CNN.

    "Western media's reports on the Tibet issue are filled with bias or prejudices," she said.

    Some Western reporters have never been to Tibet, but they often write stories to attack China's policy in Tibet, she noted.

    "It is ridiculous. They have never been there and how did they know the reality there. They are short of basic professional ethics," she said.

    Mustafa also recalled that an Indian-born Tibetan she met last year in Lhasa decided to stay in the capital city of Tibet and not to return to India, convinced that she could lead a better life there.

    The Tibetan girl, who spoke very fluent Hindi, made her decision after spending about six months in Tibet. She was born and brought up in India after her parents fled Tibet.

    Meanwhile, Mustafa listed a number of reasons as to why some Western reporters have followed a harmful trend of reporting the unrest in Tibet, among them the deeply-rooted racism in the hearts of some Western media and the fact that some Western leaders and media are jealous and scared of China's rapid development.

    "They are scared of the challenges triggered by China's development to their supremacy around the globe... They inclined to cook up or fabricate stories and sensations in the international community once there is a sign of disturbance or trouble," said Mustafa, who got her master degree in political science at Lucknow University in India in the early 1980s.

    She also raised questions about the strong interest on the part of the United States in the Tibet issue.

    "I have many question marks on why the White House has showed strong interest in those happenings in Tibet," she said.

    The United States has done many inglorious deeds in Russia, the Baltic region and the Middle East, and the so-called democracy and human rights are just a cheap excuse to conceal its real intentions, she said.

    "Some Americans really want to see an absolutely independent Tibet instead of autonomous one. They want to see a broken-up China," said the commentator.