While we have been ensconced in our own little imbroglios, citizens promoting a Free Tibet have been busy too. Government forces from Tibet and China cracked down on the largest and most sustained anti-government protests in Tibetan areas across western China in almost two decades. Additionally, officials have ordered boosted "ideological education" and "ramped-up propaganda" in Tibet to expand anti-separatist sentiment and to vilify the Dalai Lama after the protests, another official newspaper said Thursday.
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, Wang Xiangming, said.
Trials will be held before May 1 according to the AP this is "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."
The story continues "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."
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