Riots break out in Tibetan capital - 大陸旅遊

※ [本文轉錄自 CrossStrait 看板]

作者: npchen (426) 看板: CrossStrait
標題: Riots break out in Tibetan capital
時間: Fri Mar 14 20:02:51 2008

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/03/14/tibet.unrest/index.html

(CNN) -- Protesters set fire to vehicles and shops in the Tibetan capital
of Lhasa on Friday, as tear gas filled the streets and gunfire rang out,
a witness told CNN.

Roughly 1,000 people hurled rocks and concrete at security forces, demolishing
military trucks and pushing back riot police, the witness said.

Protesters appeared to be targeting shops and vehicles owned by Han Chinese
, the predominant ethnic group in China.

A main market in the capital was set on fire, and some Tibetans were hospitalized
with serious injuries, according to Kate Saunders, a spokeswoman for the
International Campaign for Tibet, which promotes human rights and democratic
freedom in Tibet.

Friday's violence appears to have started when police tried to stop a peaceful
protest by monks at Ramoche Temple, Tashi Choephel of the Tibetan Center
for Human Rights told CNN from Dharamsala, India.

"The monks from the Ramoche Temple on the north side of Lhasa, they started
a peaceful demonstration and they were blocked by the People's Armed Police
," Choephel said.

A photo e-mailed to CNN from a source in Lhasa showed what appeared to be
Chinese military vehicles containing security forces armed with riot shields
at the Ramoche Temple.

Saunders said violence broke out as bystanders joined the protest.

"Apparently local people -- lay people -- got involved, and a police car
was set on fire. This was followed by Tromsikhang Market being set on fire
," she said from London.

Saunders said her organization had confirmed reports that some Tibetans had
been hospitalized with serious injuries, though she didn't know the nature
of the injuries or how many people were being treated.

A Han girl who spoke to CNN from Lhasa said she had been beaten by a group
of Tibetans.

"I am now in hospital with a bandage on my head," she said. "The trains are
closed and I am not sure if I can take a plane back, or if I can reach the
airport. All is chaotic now."

China continues to impose reporting restrictions on foreign media in Tibet
and the neighboring province of Xinjiang. CNN sought permission to enter
Tibet on Friday morning Beijing time. So far, this perrmission has not been
granted.

China's state-run Xinhua News Agency confirmed that shops had been set on
fire and that owners of nearby businesses had shut their doors, according
to The Associated Press.

The violence was under way near Barkhor Square, home to the revered Jokhang
Temple. Some ethnic Tibetan shopkeepers hung Tibetan scarves outside their
stores in an attempt to spare them from the protesters' wrath.

The unrest follows days of demonstrations in Tibet and neighboring India
over Chinese rule in Tibet, an autonomous region of China that has long sought
its independence.

The protests come less than five months before China is to stage the Summer
Olympic Games in Beijing.
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On Thursday, two monks from the Drepung Monastery in Lhasa tried to kill
themselves to protest Chinese rule, Radio Free Asia reported, as Chinese
authorities blamed the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, for
the unrest.

Saunders told CNN the scale of the protests was unprecedented since the imposition
of Chinese martial law in 1989.

Security forces also fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of protesting Tibetan
monks near Lhasa on Tuesday, according to Radio Free Asia, a nonprofit corporation
funded by the U.S. government.

Buddhist monks in Lhasa began the protests on Monday, the anniversary of
the failed 1959 Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule, The Associated Press
reported.
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Security forces responded later in the week by surrounding three monasteries
in Lhasa, according to the International Campaign to Free Tibet, which promotes
human rights and democratic freedom in Tibet.

In India, authorities broke up a march Thursday by 100 Tibetan exiles who
had planned to trek from the northern city of Dharamshala to Tibet's border
in a "Free Tibet" protest.


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