China Arrests Monks in Attack

By Gillian Wong
Associated Press
Monday, March 23, 2009; A12

BEIJING, March 22 -- Hundreds of Tibetans attacked a police station and government officials in northwestern China despite heightened security, prompting the arrests Sunday of nearly 100 monks, state media reported.

Six of those arrested for alleged involvement in the attack were caught by police while 89 others turned themselves in, according to the official New China News Agency. All but two were monks, it said.

The protest appeared to be in response to the disappearance of a Tibetan who escaped from police custody in Qinghai province, the news agency report said.

But according to a Tibetan exile, the protest involved as many as 2,000 people and was sparked by the apparent suicide of the Tibetan, a monk being investigated for unfurling a Tibetan flag.

The report said several hundred people -- including nearly 100 monks from the Ragya monastery -- attacked the police station in Ragya, a township in the Tibetan prefecture of Golog, on Saturday, assaulting policemen and government workers.

Some officials were injured slightly in the assault, the report said, without elaborating.

A man who answered the phone at Qinghai's public security department said he had not heard about the attack or the arrests. Phone calls to other police departments and government offices in the area rang unanswered.

The violence is the latest known instance of unrest following a bomb explosion Monday in an unoccupied police station in predominantly Tibetan Ganzi prefecture in Sichuan province. The explosion shattered the building's windows, but no injuries were reported.

In February, Tibetan advocacy groups said a thousand monks gathered at a monastery in Sichuan province's Aba county to protest a ban on celebrating a traditional prayer festival called Monlam. One monk doused himself with gasoline and set himself ablaze.

The violence on Saturday began after a man accused of supporting Tibetan independence escaped from police custody and disappeared, the news report said.

It cited authorities as saying the man fled from the Ragya police station after asking to go to the washroom, prompting a manhunt. It cited a witness as saying he was seen swimming in the Yellow River.

A former resident of the area who now lives in Dharmsala, India, said the protesters were angry because they believed the man, a 28-year-old monk named Tashi Sangpo, jumped in the river to commit suicide after fleeing.

"When Tashi was being interrogated by the officials, he asked their permission to go to the toilet. He then went out and jumped into the Yellow River," said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisals against family members living in China. "The dead body is yet to be found."