Two killed at pro-Tibet rally in China

A police officer and a Tibetan monk were killed in Sichuan province, southern China, it was reported on Mar. 25, after another Tibetan independence demonstration turned violent. The demonstration in Garze started as a peaceful march by monks and nuns the day before, but grew violent when armed police tried to stop the protest after residents joined in, the India-based Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said. China's official Xinhua news agency said the protesters had attacked police with knives and stones, killing one police officer. The Tibetan rights group said one monk died and another was critically wounded when police fired live rounds into the gathering. It was not possible to confirm either claim immediately. China has banned foreign journalists from traveling to the protest areas, making it extremely difficult to verify any information. Officials in Garze denied anything had happened. Garze borders Tibet, where several days of anti-government protests led by monks spiraled into violence on Mar. 14 in the capital, Lhasa. Demonstrations in support of the Lhasa protests spread rapidly throughout provinces surrounding Tibet. An official newspaper in Lhasa announced on Mar. 25 that Chinese officials had arrested 13 people for demonstrating with "reactionary" slogans. The Tibet Daily newspaper reported that 13 people had been arrested for their part in a demonstration outside the Jokhang monastery in Lhasa on Mar. 10 -- four days before the protests there descended into violence. It said the crowd had "yelled reactionary slogans and held a self-made banner of snow-mountain lions to gather a crowd and stir up trouble." Snow lions appear on the Tibetan flag -- banned in China -- and are strongly associated with the independence movement. It is the first acknowledgment by Chinese state media that protesters have been held for peaceful actions rather than violence or criminal damage. The latest unrest in Garze shows that Tibetan protesters remain defiant a week after thousands of Chinese troops fanned out to patrol areas outside of Lhasa and clamp down on fresh conflicts. The uprising is the broadest and most sustained against Chinese rule in almost two decades. The government says at least 22 people have died in Lhasa, while Tibetan rights groups say nearly 140 Tibetans have been killed, including 19 in Gansu province. Meng Jianzhu, the minister of public security, has ordered Tibet's security forces to remain on the alert for further unrest and said "patriotic education" campaigns would be strengthened in monasteries, according to the Tibet Daily newspaper. "The Dalai clique refuses to give up their evil designs, and even in their death throes are planning new acts of sabotage," Meng was quoted as saying, during a visit to Lhasa. Meng was the first high level central government official to visit since protests began in the Tibetan capital on Mar. 10, the anniversary of a failed uprising against Chinese rule. Unrest among Tibet's Buddhist clergy has been blamed in part on compulsory "patriotic education" classes, widely reviled by monks for cutting into religious study and forcing them to make ritual denouncements of the Dalai Lama, who fled to India in 1959, after the failed revolt. The continued Tibetan resistance and the hardline stance of officials has put China's human rights record under the spotlight and has frustrated the communist leadership, which is hoping for a smooth run-up to the Beijing Olympics.