There have been further protests in the past few days in Tibet as the crackdown on the plateau deepens, with mass detentions in different areas and some monasteries encircled by troops. In some areas, including Kardze in Sichuan province (Kham) and Lhasa in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), there are signs that the authorities are provoking further unrest and frustration by requiring local people to sign denunciations of the Dalai Lama. According to reliable reports received by ICT, in some rural areas of eastern Tibet many Tibetans have fled villages or nomad encampments and are hiding out elsewhere to avoid arrest.
In some areas, such as around Pashoe county in Chamdo in the TAR, and around Wara monastery in Jomda county in Kardze, local lamas and monks have intervened in an attempt to prevent the escalation of unrest. The authorities are continuing to attempt to block news reaching the outside world by targeting Tibetans with cell phones, with one source reporting the detention of a Tibetan for receiving text messages from family.
Tibetan protests have been reported in at least 42 county-level locations, as well as in Chengdu (the capital of Sichuan province), Lanzhou (the capital of Gansu province), and Beijing. Protests have occurred in many different monasteries, towns or villages within several individual counties. About three quarters of the county-level locations are in Tibetan areas of Qinghai, Sichuan, or Gansu provinces, outside the TAR (see map of Tibetan protests at www.savetibet.org). Laogai Research Foundation (laogai.org)
Activist Hu Jia was on Thursday jailed for three years and six months for subversion, his lawyer said, amid what rights groups charge is a campaign by China to silence dissent before the Olympics.