Beijing - A Tibetan accused of trying to incite a riot and a
police officer were killed in a gunfight in western China, the
official news agency Xinhua reported Wednesday in the first official
confirmation of a Tibetan killed by authorities since unrest broke
out in March.
Police tried to arrest the suspect in Qinghai province, the
suspect resisted and gunfire broke out, Xinhua said, citing the
provincial Public Security Department.
The officer, identified as Lama Cedain, also an ethnic Tibetan,
was killed and other officers then killed the suspect, the report
said.
The suspect, who was not identified, was accused of leading
pro-independence 'insurgents' in attempting to incite local herdsmen
to riot March 21 in western Hongke Town in Dari.
Protests against Chinese rule in Tibet escalated into rioting on
March 14 in Lhasa, where shops belonging to ethnic Han Chinese were
looted and set on fire.
The Chinese government said 18 civilians and a police officer were
killed in the rioting in the Tibetan capital, but the Tibetan
government in exile said about 140 people were killed in the
demonstrations and Chinese crackdown, most of them Tibetans shot by
Chinese police.
Chinese authorities had previously insisted they had not killed
anyone in the crackdown and blamed Tibetan 'rioters' for the deaths
of the 18 civilians.
On Tuesday, China sentenced 30 defendants for terms ranging from
three years to life in prison for participating in the Lhasa riots.
Human Rights Watch on Wednesday criticized those trial as unfair,
saying they were conducted in secret and the defendants did not have
access to counsel. Authorities have also failed to distinguish
between peaceful and violent protesters and assumed the defendants'
guilt rather than innocence, the New York-based rights group charged.
'The Chinese authorities have so restricted the defendants' rights
that the hearings are no more than a rubber stamp,' said Sophie
Richardson, Human Rights Watch's Asia advocacy director. 'This isn't
fair and transparent justice. It's political punishment masquerading
as a legal process.'
Xinhua reported that the sentencings were handed down in 'an open
court session,' but Human Rights Watch said the trials were conducted
secretly on undisclosed dates this month and did not meet minimum
international standards of due process.
In addition, attorneys for the defendants withdrew after judicial
officials in Beijing threatened to discipline them or suspend their
licenses, explaining that the cases were 'sensitive,' the rights
group said.
'Guilty or innocent, these Tibetans (and any other defendant in
China), are entitled to a fair trial,' Richardson said.
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