CHINESE police arrested 18 Tibetans for staging pro-independence protests, a Western human rights group reported yesterday.
And Beijing has narrowly escaped censure at the United Nations Human Rights Sub-committee over its human rights record.
The London-based Tibet Information Network said four small-scale protests were reported by foreign travellers in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa.
It said the first protest, by Tibetan Buddhist nuns, was held on February 25; two small groups of Buddhist monks protested on Tuesday and four unidentified men held a protest on Wednesday. The protesters shouted slogans or carried the banned Tibetan flag.
The network also said Tibetans clashed with paramilitary police on January 1 in the rural town of Nyemo, 100 kilometres west of Lhasa. An unofficial source reported that middle school students put up posters and shouted slogans calling on Chinese to leave the area.
Security forces reportedly used tear-gas, then opened fire on the students. One student was shot in the leg and another was stabbed, the network said.
At his weekly briefing yesterday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mr Wu Jianmin rebuffed efforts by exiled Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama, to resume talks with the Chinese.