Five arrested in pro-Tibet protest in Moscow

Agence France-Presse

Saturday, April 26, 2008 ( Moscow)

Russian police quickly crushed on Saturday demonstration in support of Tibet outside the Chinese embassy in Moscow, arresting five people moments after the protest began.

Around twenty demonstrators held up a Tibetan flag and a banner saying ''Stop Killing Civilians'' and distributed leaflets that denounced ''the bloody acts that continue in historical Tibet'' before armed anti-riot police broke up the protest.

An AFP journalist was briefly arrested during the protest before being released.

''We want them to stop spilling blood,'' said Yulia Bachinova, one of the organisers of the demonstration.

Russia has said that China's violent clampdown on protests in Tibet is not an international diplomatic issue but rather an internal matter for the country to resolve.