published by: World Tibet Network News, Thursday,November 30, 1995

BEIJING, Nov 30 (Reuter) - China's crackdown on Tibetan separatism has extended to multimedia.

Authorities in the central Chinese city of Xian seized pirated CD ROMs of the movie "Little Buddha" during a recent raid, a police spokesman said on Thursday.

"Little Buddha," by Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci, tells the story of an American boy sought as a reincarnation of a Tibetan lama.

China has banned the movie because it promoted the idea of splitting Tibet from China, the official Legal Daily said.

Beijing on Wednesday named six-year-old Gyaicain Norbu as the reincarnation of Tibet's second holiest monk, the 10th Panchen Lama, who died in January 1989.

The move directly challenged the Dalai Lama, who in May selected another six-year-old boy, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, as the new Panchen Lama.

Police and officials in Xian raided wholesalers on November 1 and found 11 stores illegally selling pirated copies of the movie and pornographic audio-visual products, Legal Daily said.

About 2,200 copies of banned or pirated audio-visual products were seized, the newspaper said.