The largest pro-independence demonstrations in the Tibetan capital in nearly two decades have rattled the Chinese government as it struggles to contain growing criticism of its human rights record in the run-up to the 2008 Summer Olympics.
More than 500 Buddhist monks participated in marches toward the center of Lhasa, shouting slogans against China's 57-year rule over Tibet. Two of Tibet's three most important monasteries participated in the protests Monday and Tuesday. Monks at the third, the remote Ganden Monastery in the mountains 29 miles from the capital, were said to have staged their own demonstration Wednesday, said Robert Barnett, a Tibet scholar at Columbia University in New York.
"It is an astonishing development after 20 years that this is happening," Barnett said.
Activists quoting witnesses in Lhasa said Chinese security forces were setting up roadblocks around the city.
In another security move, China notified tour operators this week that Mt. Everest would be closed to climbers this year until May 10. Although the letter of notification cited environmental concerns, analysts say the Chinese want to avoid a repeat of an incident last year, when climbers made a video of themselves on Everest with a "Free Tibet" banner, and posted it on the Internet.
China has ruled Tibet since 1951, and critics say it has stifled its culture, language and religion. This week's protests marked the March 10 anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising against China. Separately, several hundred Tibetan exiles tried to march into Tibet from the north Indian town of Dharamsala, where the Dalai Lama presides over a government in exile. Some were arrested.
The U.S.-funded Radio Free Asia's Tibetan-language service reported that it received a phone call Wednesday from a witness in the Ganden Monastery who said monks were demonstrating. The service also reported fresh accounts of a protest Tuesday in which several hundred monks were seen marching near a police station.
"There were probably a couple of thousand armed police. . . . Police fired tear gas into the crowd," the witness was quoted as saying.
Although some witnesses said they heard gunshots, no serious injuries were reported.
The blockades kept the monks far from the city center, where they had hoped to demonstrate.
But the marches clearly rattled the Chinese government, which has been trying to fend off human rights activists from all corners of the globe using the Summer Olympics as a platform for their causes.
