Tibet group urges world leaders to raise crackdown

Tuesday August 5 2008

BEIJING, Aug 5 (Reuters) - China's crackdown on Tibet has deepened since rioting in the region last March and world leaders attending the Beijing Olympics should raise concerns with China, a group affiliated with the exiled Dalai Lama said on Tuesday.

In its first detailed analysis of protests in March that spread across the Tibetan plateau, triggering a harsh crackdown, the International Campaign for Tibet said conditions in the Chinese-ruled region belied the image Beijing is trying to project for the Olympics which start on Friday.

"In order to hide its violent repression in Tibet, particularly as it seeks to project an image of stability and unity in the build-up to the Olympics, China has sealed off virtually the entire plateau -- despite promising increasing openness prior to the Games," said the report.

"Chinese authorities have taken wide-ranging measures to impose an information blackout to hide the repression in Tibet as part of their attempts to present an image of 'unity' in the PRC in the buildup to 08/08/08," it said, referring to China by its official name, the People's Republic of China, and Friday's opening ceremony. Eight is an auspicious number for Chinese.

The show of unity included the use of Tibetan performers in the Olympic opening ceremony in Beijing, it said.

The Washington- and London-based ICT said hundreds of Tibetans remained in custody and about 100 were killed in the regional capital, Lhasa, during the initial March crackdown and 40 more were killed in ethnic Tibetan areas of China.

U.S. President George W. Bush and other world leaders attending the Olympics should "publicly express concern in Beijing about the crackdown in Tibet and the suppression of freedoms that led to the spring uprising", it said.

"The Chinese leadership must also be pressed for a full accounting of the more than 1,000 Tibetans whose status following the spring demonstrations in Tibet is unknown," said the 148-page analysis of the crackdown.

Following warnings by Chinese security officials of reprisals after the Games, "Tibetans fear the crackdown could worsen still further after the Olympics, once the global focus is no longer on China," it said.

In a sign China was taking no chances with security ahead of the Games, authorities in Tibet held held "anti-terror" exercises in recent days, the state-run Tibet Daily reported.

The drills were held around the railway station and airport of Lhasa, the focus of the March protests, the report said.

(Reporting by Paul Eckert; Editing by Nick Macfie)