Hundreds of Tibetans, monks attack China police station (Roundup)

Mar 22, 2009, 13:24 GMT

A file photo made available 27 February 2009 shows ethnic Tibetan pilgrims walking around stupas at Kumbum Lamasery in west China\'s Qinghai province 25 February 2009. EPA/BILL AUSTIN

   Beijing - Police detained nearly 100 people after hundreds monks and lay Tibetans attacked a police station in China's western province of Qinghai, state media and Tibetan exiles said on Sunday.

   Several hundred people, including about 100 monks from the Ragya monastery, attacked the Gyala township police station in Qinghai's remote Golok (Guoluo) prefecture from Saturday afternoon, the Chinese government's Xinhua news agency said.

Police were questioning six people arrested after the attack and 89 others who surrendered, the agency quoted local official Ju Kezhong as saying.

Ninety-three of those under detention were monks from Ragya, and police were still searching for other monks who fled after the attack, it said.

The pro-Tibetan independence website Phayul.com quoted local sources as telling the Voice of Tibet radio station that some 2,000 people took part in the protest, which was sparked by the suicide of Ragya monk Tashi Sangpo, 28, after he escaped from police custody on Saturday.

The website reported that protesters carried a Tibetan national flag and banners into the town after they heard news of the death.

It said the protesters chanted slogans such as 'independence for Tibet' and 'long live the Dalai Lama'.

Police arrested Zhaxi Sangwu on Friday after they claimed to have found a Tibetan national flag and political leaflets in his room, it said.

   The Chinese government's Xinhua news agency quoted officials as saying the attackers were 'deceived by rumours about Zhaxi Sangwu,' who escaped from the police station after his arrest on Friday for 'advocating 'Tibet independence'.'

The agency said Zhaxi Sangwu escaped from the police station while he was using the toilet on Saturday afternoon, but it did not say what happened to him afterwards.

Phayul said he jumped into a river following his escape from police custody.

   The attack is the biggest in a series of mostly small protests and other incidents reported in Tibetan areas of China around last week's 50th anniversary of a failed Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule.

Xinhua said the attackers 'assaulted policemen and government staff' on Saturday, causing minor injuries to some of them.

Most of Tibetans left the police station by 5 pm Saturday but about 30 remained there until the early hours of Sunday, it quoted Golok prefecture officials as saying.

   Paramilitary police have sealed off almost all Tibetan areas of China to foreign journalists and tourists for more than one week while the government has tightened border security and cut off some text messaging and other mobile telephone services in Lhasa and other Tibetan areas.

In Lhasa, where rioting broke out on March 14 last year, troops in full battle dress reportedly patrolled deserted streets in the city centre last weekend.

   A small bomb hit a local government compound in the Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan province on Monday, state media reported.

A monk set fire to himself in late February after authorities prevented him from observing a traditional prayer festival at the Kirti monastery in Sichuan.