She later spoke to a few other foreigners in Tibet. Based on what they had seen, they agreed that the riot must have been organized. "You can't have it all of a sudden. It can be (happening) in one place, if it is not organized. It must be premeditated, at least prepared," she said.

Commenting on some Western media accusing China of "massacring Tibetans" in their "peaceful protest", Ursula said, "You can invent some stories in order to sell better, but how can you accuse anybody if you were not there," she said.

Guzman Escardo, who works with the Association for International Solidarity in Asia (ASIA), told Xinhua that the local police had been extremely polite, contrary to what the Western media presumed.

"The police on the streets are kind and polite. They always smile at me," he said.

Escardo said he watched channel nine of China Central Television (CCTV) and the Spanish TV to see what was going on.

"The local government often contacts us to make sure I am safe. They take a lot care of me," he said, "I feel safe at the hotel."

Aside from foreigners in Tibet, tens of thousands of Chinese netizens have lashed out at a number of Western media for distorting facts in covering the riot in Lhasa.

According to the netizens, German newspaper Berlin Morningpost posted a picture on its website in which police in Lhasa rescued a young man of Han nationality assaulted by rioters. But the caption said "insurrectionist taken away by police".

In a similar case, N-TV, headquartered in Germany, was accused of using TV footage showing police with captured protestors in a report on the Tibet riot. The footage had been shot in Nepal, and the police were Nepalese.

The N-TV said on March 23 that it would check the authenticity of the TV footage, following Germany's RTL television which on the same day said that it "regretted an error" in covering the riot in Lhasa.

The RTL TV admitted that it had reported the riots with a picture taken on March 17 in the capital city of Kathmandu, where Nepalese security forces were confronting demonstrators with batons.

(Xinhua News Agency March 25, 2008)