The Secret Tibet (The Forbidden world)

Tibetan leader plans to visit city in May

MADISON — A plan to honor the Dalai Lama by flying the Tibetan flag over City Hall during his visit next week is drawing flak from an atheist group and China's ruling Communist Party.

A city-county committee on Thursday night unanimously approved a request to display the flag during the May 2 to 4 visit on top of the government building that houses City Hall.

The Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation argues the committee should not grant an exception to honor the Dalai Lama, the leader of Buddhists in Tibet and Mongolia, because he is a religious figure. Current rules say only the U.S. flag should be flown unless the committee makes an exception.

"To use the seat of our municipal government to honor a religious leader we think crosses the line of state-church separation," co-president Dan Barker said.

The foundation is the largest group of atheists and agnostics in the U.S. and advocates for the separation of church and state.

Sherab Lhatsang, a member of the Wisconsin Tibetan Association, said the Dalai Lama is both a political and religious leader.

"The Dalai Lama is like a head of state," Lhatsang said. "He is our temporal and spiritual leader and he is the one who is guiding us."

The Dalai Lama fled into exile in 1959 following a failed uprising against Chinese rule.

Chinese officials made visits earlier this year to local politicians to denounce the Dalai Lama, who they accuse of trying to separate Tibet from their rule.

"He has been trying hard to deceive public opinion in the world by disguising himself as a champion for democracy and freedom," an official from the Chinese Consulate General's office wrote in a letter.