Tibetan students protest in China

April 26, 2009

BEIJING (AFP) — Hundreds of students at a Tibetan school in China's northwest held a daring protest, demonstrating over education conditions, locals and an overseas Tibetan group said Saturday.

The protest took place Friday morning among Tibetan students at the Xiahe middle school in Gansu province, the proprietor of a local hotel told AFP by telephone.

"The students protested on Friday. There were no protests today," he said without giving his name.

"There were a few police, but no violence. Everything is quiet."

Xiahe, is home to the Labrang Monastery, a famous Tibetan Buddhist temple, where monks protested in March 2008 when anti-Chinese unrest spread throughout ethnic Tibetan regions of China.

During the unrest, the remote town and monastery were besieged with armed police, the proprietor said.

According to Phayul.com, an exiled Tibetan news website, several hundred Tibetan students were expressing their disappointment over the rise in the number of Chinese students in college-level institutes.

The students said college seats that are normally given to Tibetans were being given instead to Chinese students, it said.

Phones at the Xiahe public security office and the Xiahe Middle School were not being answered Saturday.

Unrest in ethnic Tibetan regions in China spread last year after riots erupted in Lhasa during March.

China has said "rioters" were responsible for 21 deaths, while saying that its security forces killed only one "insurgent."

However, the exiled Tibetan government headed by the Dalai Lama has said more than 200 Tibetans were killed in China's subsequent crackdown.

A Tibet court issued a suspended death sentence for one man and stiff jail terms for two others for setting deadly fires in the Lhasa riots last year, Chinese state media said Tuesday.

The two fires killed six people, Xinhua news agency said, quoting the Tibet Daily newspaper.