Feb 14, 2006, 13:46 GMT
New Delhi - A Tibetan website based in India shut down for a day Tuesday to protest global search engine Google's decision to censor search results in China.
The message greeting visitors today on Phayul.com, a popular source of news on the movement for a free Tibet.
Phayul.com, a popular source of news on the movement for a free Tibet, had the words 'Access Denied' emblazoned across its homepage Tuesday.
Students for a Free Tibet said it had chosen Valentine's Day to announce a 'mass break-up' with Google as the global search engine and China 'were going steady,' IANS news agency reported.
The students announced a new website named noluv4google.com which would be an engine to voice their protests against Google's decision to censor results on its Chinese search service to bar people from gaining access to politically sensitive material.
Google's censorship has meant that people in China cannot obtain search results that provide links to websites that have references to Tibet and the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.
A message on phayul.com said: 'Phayul respects the right to information. People in China and Tibet are denied this basic right of an individual.'
'And helping China in this serious offence is Google. Phayul condemns Google's censorship in China and Tibet.'
Students for a Free Tibet claimed Tuesday that nearly 3,340 internet users had signed up for its protest against Google's policy for China.
Several Tibetan groups, many of them based in India, have been seeking Tibet's liberation from Chinese occupation.
China took control of Tibet in 1959 when the Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama fled to India with thousands of followers.
More than 100,00 exiled Tibetans now live in India along with the Dalai Lama. Over 30,000 Tibetans are settled in other countries, largely in North America and Europe.
Your Talkback on this Story