Tibet orders post-riot propaganda drive
Friday, 4 April 2008
BEIJING, Apr 3 (AP): More than 1,000 people have been arrested or turned themselves in to police after deadly rioting last month in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, the city's deputy Communist Party secretary said.
Trials will be held before May 1, Wang Xiangming was quoted as saying Thursday by the official Tibet Commerce newspaper, an apparent sign of the government's determination to close the book on the violence well ahead of the Aug. 8 opening of the Beijing Olympic Games.
Wang's remarks offer the most complete picture yet of the scope of the crackdown on the largest and most sustained anti-government protests in Tibetan areas across western China in almost two decades.
Beijing has sent thousands of police and army troops to the area to maintain an edgy peace, hunt down protest leaders, and cordon-off Buddhist monasteries whose monks led protests that began peacefully on March 10 before turning violent four days later.
Wang said 800 had been arrested in the Lhasa violence, while another 280 had surrendered to take advantage of a police offer of leniency.
Chinese officials have put the death toll at 22 and Tibetan exiles say nearly 140 people were killed.
Alongside the ramped-up security, the region's top officials have ordered boosted ideological education and ramped-up propaganda in Tibet to build anti-separatist sentiment and to vilify the Dalai Lama after the protests, another official newspaper said Thursday.
Such campaigns have exacerbated tensions in Tibet and the resentments they created are believed by experts and Tibetans to have fed into the unrest.
The region's hardline Communist Party leader also ordered harsh punishment for local party officials found lacking in their commitment to Beijing's official line, following the sometimes violent anti-government protests and the harsh crackdown that followed.
Trials will be held before May 1, Wang Xiangming was quoted as saying Thursday by the official Tibet Commerce newspaper, an apparent sign of the government's determination to close the book on the violence well ahead of the Aug. 8 opening of the Beijing Olympic Games.
Wang's remarks offer the most complete picture yet of the scope of the crackdown on the largest and most sustained anti-government protests in Tibetan areas across western China in almost two decades.
Beijing has sent thousands of police and army troops to the area to maintain an edgy peace, hunt down protest leaders, and cordon-off Buddhist monasteries whose monks led protests that began peacefully on March 10 before turning violent four days later.
Wang said 800 had been arrested in the Lhasa violence, while another 280 had surrendered to take advantage of a police offer of leniency.
Chinese officials have put the death toll at 22 and Tibetan exiles say nearly 140 people were killed.
Alongside the ramped-up security, the region's top officials have ordered boosted ideological education and ramped-up propaganda in Tibet to build anti-separatist sentiment and to vilify the Dalai Lama after the protests, another official newspaper said Thursday.
Such campaigns have exacerbated tensions in Tibet and the resentments they created are believed by experts and Tibetans to have fed into the unrest.
The region's hardline Communist Party leader also ordered harsh punishment for local party officials found lacking in their commitment to Beijing's official line, following the sometimes violent anti-government protests and the harsh crackdown that followed.