Reuters - Tibet deaths, arrests and protests shadow Olympics
This article was sent to you from Bombastic4000@gmail.com, who uses Reuters Mobile Site to get news and information on the go. To access Reuters on your mobile phone, go to:
http://mobile.reuters.com
Tibet deaths, arrests and protests shadow Olympics
Tuesday, Mar 25, 2008 1:39PM UTC
By Chris Buckley and Lindsay Beck
BEIJING (Reuters) - At least two people have died in fresh protests in a Tibetan part of western China, reports said on Tuesday, as authorities made arrests in Tibet's capital Lhasa in an effort to reassert control over the restive region.
State media said one police officer was killed and the exiled Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy reported one Tibetan protester shot dead and another critically hurt after unrest in Sichuan's Ganzi (Garze) Tibetan Prefecture.
"The police were forced to fire warning shots, and dispersed the lawless mobsters," the brief Xinhua news agency report said, without mentioning any deaths of protesters, who it said attacked with rocks and knives.
The latest news of unrest and arrests comes after protesters seeking to put pressure on China tried to disrupt the Beijing Olympic Games torch lighting ceremony in Greece, an act that Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang called "disgraceful".
Beijing had hoped the torch's journey around the world and through China would be a symbol of confident national unity ahead of the Games, which open on August 8.
Instead, it is caught in a war of words with the Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhism's spiritual leader, and his supporters.
Beijing has accused the Nobel Peace Prize-winning monk of masterminding monk-led marches in Lhasa and then an anti-Chinese riot there in mid-March, which authorities say killed 19.
Since then, Tibetan parts of western China have seen ongoing protests, despite a massive influx of police and troops.
The 72-year-old Dalai Lama denies that he is behind the unrest and his government-in-exile says 140 people have died in the violence.
China's Communist authorities, which entered Tibet in 1950, have barred foreign journalists from the remote, mountain region, making the competing claims difficult to independently check.
SNOW LION
In Lhasa, 13 people were arrested for a March 10 protest, the Tibet Daily reported, the first announcement of consequences for those involved in that largely peaceful march.
Monks yelled "reactionary slogans" and held up a banner of snow-mountain lions, the Tibet Daily said.
The snow lion is a widely used symbol of demands for Tibetan independence from China and the march came on the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule.
Nicholas Bequelin of Human Rights Watch said the arrests of apparently peaceful protesters marked a turn in the security crackdown in Tibet towards political targets.
"This official account gives credence to the fact that the protests in Lhasa started peacefully, and only in subsequent days, after repeated police suppression, did they become violent," said Bequelin.
China's Minister for Public Security, Meng Jianzhu, made an inspection tour of Lhasa and vowed stricter management of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, the Tibet Daily reported.
The riot "not only violated the law, it also seriously violated the fundamental teachings of Tibetan Buddhism", the newspaper quoted Meng as saying, adding the Dalai Lama had long been disqualified as a true Buddhist.
"We must continue to deepen patriotic education in the monasteries," Meng said.
Buddhist monks were involved in protests leading to the March 14 riot, and threw rocks and hot water at police, the Tibet paper said, calling them "loyal running dogs of the Dalai clique".
But China's assertion that protests outside of Lhasa have faded after a massive influx of troops across Tibet and nearby areas was shaken when state media announced the Ganzi unrest.
TORCH TURMOIL
The ongoing unrest -- and China's response to it -- heightens the government's prospects of facing worldwide protests as the Olympic torch circles the globe.
Protesters sought to disrupt the torch-lighting ceremony in Greece on Monday despite a tight police cordon, a moment that went unmentioned in the Chinese press which instead described the day as "a perfect start on the road to gold".
Press freedom group Reporters Without Borders said three of its members had tried to stage Monday's protest, and exiled Tibetans have pledged to demonstrate against the torch.
Human Rights Watch said the torch should not go through Tibet unless China agrees to an independent investigation into the unrest there.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner also called for an end to "repression" in Tibet and said he had requested his Chinese counterpart, Yang Jiechi, allow journalists into the region.
(Additional reporting by Emma Graham-Harrison in Beijing and Krittivas Mukherjee in New Delhi; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)
("Countdown to Beijing Olympics" blog at
No comments:
Post a Comment