Nobel laureates in Dharamsala condemn South Africa's move to deny visa to Dalai Lama

Nobel laureates Jody Williams and Shirin Ebadi have criticized South Africa's move to deny a visa to Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama for attending a peace conference in Cape Town.

Upset over the issue, they said they would boycott the event.

The Dalai Lama, who lives in exile in India and is at loggerheads with China over Tibet, had been hoping to join a Nobel peace conference in Cape Town on October 13.

"Fourteen Nobel laureates protested to President Zuma of South Africa, pressurising him, as the host committee has been doing from the day it was chosen to be in South Africa, pressurising him, begging him to give a visa to his holiness so that we all could be together and celebrate in South Africa the legacy of Nelson Mandela," said Williams, an American anti-landmine campaigner.

This is the third time South Africa has refused the Dalai Lama a visa in the last five years, according to his representative, and has intensified speculation about China's influence over the country, a major trading partner and investor.

"It was a message of protest to the governments who sale their soul and their own sovereignty to China as South Africa did," Williams added.

Williams further said that she, Ebadi and several other Nobel laureates had decided to boycott the Cape Town meeting, forcing organisers to postpone the event so that it could be moved to another country to enable the Dalai Lama to attend the event.

Officials at the South African embassy in New Delhi were not immediately available for comment. The South African Foreign Ministry had last month confirmed that it received a visa application from the Dalai Lama and said it was being subjected to 'normal due process'.