Chinese police 'shot four rioters'
Red alert: Soldiers checking the identification papers of people in a Lhasa street, Tibet, yesterday. Tibet authorities said yesterday they had arrested dozens of people involved in a wave of anti-Chinese violence that has swept the region. Picture: Reuters
Friday, March 21, 2008
CHINESE police shot and wounded four people "in self-defence" last Sunday amid unrest in a Tibetan-populated area of southwestern Sichuan province, state-run Xinhua news agency said yesterday.
The report, which quoted police sources, marked the first time China has admitted using potentially lethal force to quell unrest that first erupted in Tibet last week and spilled into adjacent provinces including Sichuan.
The shootings occurred in the remote Tibetan-populated county of Ngawa, or Aba in Chinese, amid protests that broke out there last Sunday following deadly rioting in the Tibetan capital.
Activist groups, however, have said eight people were killed by security forces in the Ngawa protests and circulated photos this week of dead bodies with apparent bullet wounds to back up their allegations that Chinese forces were using lethal force.
The veracity of the photos could not be independently verified.
The protests started in Lhasa to mark the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule, which had begun in 1950 after communist troops moved into the Buddhist region to "liberate" it.
Chinese authorities have repeatedly accused the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader who fled his homeland after the 1959 uprising, of masterminding the latest unrest but have provided no evidence.
Meanwhile, Tibet authorities said yesterday they had arrested dozens of people involved in a wave of anti-Chinese violence that has swept the mountain region and prompted Beijing to pour in troops to crush further unrest.
The prosecutor's office in Tibet's capital, Lhasa, said 24 people faced charges of "endangering national security as well as beating, smashing, looting, arson and other grave crimes" in last Friday's riots, the Tibet Daily reported.
They were the first arrests since rioting erupted across the remote region. Some outside groups say hundreds of Tibetans may have already been detained, and the China News Service reported Lhasa has broadcast wanted pictures of more suspects. "The facts of the crimes are clear and the evidence is solid, and they should be severely punished," a Lhasa deputy chief prosecutor, Xie Yanjun, said.
In a phone call with her Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called for China to show restraint toward protesters and resume dialogue with the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader.
AFP, Reuters
The report, which quoted police sources, marked the first time China has admitted using potentially lethal force to quell unrest that first erupted in Tibet last week and spilled into adjacent provinces including Sichuan.
The shootings occurred in the remote Tibetan-populated county of Ngawa, or Aba in Chinese, amid protests that broke out there last Sunday following deadly rioting in the Tibetan capital.
Activist groups, however, have said eight people were killed by security forces in the Ngawa protests and circulated photos this week of dead bodies with apparent bullet wounds to back up their allegations that Chinese forces were using lethal force.
The veracity of the photos could not be independently verified.
The protests started in Lhasa to mark the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule, which had begun in 1950 after communist troops moved into the Buddhist region to "liberate" it.
Chinese authorities have repeatedly accused the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader who fled his homeland after the 1959 uprising, of masterminding the latest unrest but have provided no evidence.
Meanwhile, Tibet authorities said yesterday they had arrested dozens of people involved in a wave of anti-Chinese violence that has swept the mountain region and prompted Beijing to pour in troops to crush further unrest.
The prosecutor's office in Tibet's capital, Lhasa, said 24 people faced charges of "endangering national security as well as beating, smashing, looting, arson and other grave crimes" in last Friday's riots, the Tibet Daily reported.
They were the first arrests since rioting erupted across the remote region. Some outside groups say hundreds of Tibetans may have already been detained, and the China News Service reported Lhasa has broadcast wanted pictures of more suspects. "The facts of the crimes are clear and the evidence is solid, and they should be severely punished," a Lhasa deputy chief prosecutor, Xie Yanjun, said.
In a phone call with her Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called for China to show restraint toward protesters and resume dialogue with the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader.
AFP, Reuters
Business Besides Oil
