Tibetan Serf Emancipation Day today, but no info available

Though the Chinese government may have invited more foreign media to Tibet in the lead up to today, Tibet's Serf Emancipation Day, according to a China Daily article, Internet users within China can't tell the difference. We can't get any foreign coverage of the holiday here anyway.

Internet searches for news about the holiday instated this year by the Chinese National People's Congress only reap articles by Xinhua, the media arm of the government, and China Daily, the country's only national English language publication published by the China Communist Party. Several other news sources came up in my searches–Reuters, Washington Post, a Taiwanese media outlet–but only a BBC and Times online article could be loaded. The Times online article was headlined, "New holiday celebrates freedom for serfs and lets China show itself in a good light."

Earlier in the week, Youtube.com was blocked to all Internet users within China. Apparently started over a video depicting the beating of a Tibetan by PRC officers, the entire nation of Internet users was denied Youtube for the better part of this week. The government said the video was fabricated and the site is again available. Read Al Jazeera's report here.

Today's holiday is meant to celebrate the start of Chinese rule in Tibet, which began in 1959. The government's position is that it freed Tibetans from primitive slavery and antiquated living conditions. The holiday was formalized weeks after last Spring's Lhasa protests, during which Tibetans rioted against the Chinese government's rule.

Here's what I'm interested in: According to a Xinhua article, the holiday is meant to celebrate the freedom from primeval slavery Tibetans suffered under out-moded serf style rule. According to another China Daily article, only 5 percent of the population in old Tibet owned serfs. But according to yet another Xinhua article, more than a million Tibetans were freed when the Chinese came in 1959 and that that number, one million, comprised 95 percent of all Tibetans. This means before 1959, Tibetans were either serf owners or serfs.

If these numbers are factual and true, they're astounding and provide great credence to some of the government's actions in 1959. But I don't know if they're true. The journalists writing these stories work for the government and the government won't allow me to read any articles on the issue other than those written by journalists working for the government. I can't corroborate this information with any sources from outside of China. It's insular, inflexible and frankly scary and it doesn't provide a convincing-enough argument for me.

But lest I feel caged in and isolated in China, the government wants me to read another Xinhua article headlined, "Curious about Tibet? Look, listen and see for yourself!" Well, I can't. Since the beginning of February, foreigners haven't been allowed to go to Tibet or large parts of Gansu, Sichuan and Qinghai provinces.

It's not that I don't think these things are true, it's that I'm only permitted one source of information and I'm not willing to believe anything until I can get a few sources on the same issue. I guess it's another situation where the government just asks me to take their word for it. By now, I want to see things for myself.