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Police arrest a Tibetan protester in the Nepalese capital Kathmandu March 17, 2008. Tibetan refugees in Nepal demand justice in front of the U.N. office in Kathmandu. regarding the crackdown on Tibetans by Chinese authorities. (Gopal Chitrakar/Landov)
Protests and killing spread across Tibet today, in defiance of the Chinese government’s crackdown on the protests in Lhasa that began more than a week ago on the 49th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule.
There were protests today across the Tibetan plateau, including in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, Kham and Amdo.
Although official figures are not are available, more than 100 people are believed to have been killed in the largest anti-government protests in nearly two decades, according to the Tibetan government in exile.
Initially, the Lhasa protests came in response to the imprisonment of Tibetan Buddhist monks, but as the protests have expanded across the region, they also encompassed a growing number of problems that affect all the Tibetan communities, including cultural, economic and religious issues.
The fact that the protests are spreading to towns and villages is a significant development.
“If it’s happening in bigger places, that’s understandable. But if it’s going to start to spread to smaller rural villages and then towns, then they’re really in trouble,” said Robert Barnett, a professor of contemporary Tibetan studies at Columbia University.
“The next question is whether the protests continue, knowing that there is a high level of shooting death,” he said. “If the protests go on beyond that point, that’s a very serious indicator that people are questioning if the Chinese have earned the position that they’ve taken to be the rulers.”
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said at a news conference today that the uprisings were orchestrated by supporters of the Dalai Lama. He told China’s annual legislative session that the government had acted with extreme restraint in putting down the protests.
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