Tibet's governor denounced anti-Chinese protesters in Lhasa as criminals and vowed to bring them to justice as a midnight deadline loomed yesterday for them to turn themselves in. More clashes erupted in other Chinese provinces.
Champa Phuntsok, an ethnic Tibetan, said the death toll from last week's violent demonstrations in the Tibetan capital had risen to 16 and dozens were injured.
The Dalai Lama's exiled Tibetan government in India has said that 80 Tibetans were killed -- a claim Champa Phuntsok denied.
PHOTO: DAVID LONGSTREATH, AP
The governor steered a line between sounding reassuring and being tough at his press conference in Beijing. He told reporters security forces "did not carry or use any lethal weapons," but promised that authorities would deal harshly with rioters who defy the surrender notice.
"No country would allow those offenders or criminals to escape the arm of justice and China is no exception," he said.
"If these people turn themselves in, they will be treated with leniency within the framework of the law," he said.
Otherwise, "we will deal with them harshly," he said.
Champa Phuntsok described a scene of chaos throughout Lhasa on Friday with "people engaged in reckless beating, smashing, looting and burning."
Shops, schools, hospitals and banks were targeted and bystanders were beaten and set on fire, he said.
Among the 16 dead, he said, three people jumped out of buildings to avoid arrest while 13 were "innocent civilians."
In one case, a person died after being covered in gasoline and then set on fire, he said. In another incident, the protesters "knocked out a police officer on patrol and then they used a knife to cut a piece of flesh from his buttocks the size of a fist," he said.
He said calm had been restored.
Authorities paraded handcuffed Tibetan prisoners in Lhasa yesterday, the Times of London reported in its online edition. The report said four trucks in a convoy drove through the city with 40 people, mostly young Tibetan men and women, standing in the back, their wrists handcuffed and a soldier behind each one holding the prisoner's head bowed.
Going house-to-house, police checked identity cards and residence permits, detaining anyone without permission to stay in Lhasa, the Times said.
The Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet said residents feared a military sweep after the midnight deadline.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called again yesterday for China to exercise restraint and said Beijing should find a way to engage the Dalai Lama. But Russia said it hopes China's government "will take all necessary measures to stop illegal actions and provide for the swiftest possible normalization of the situation."
Security forces were also mobilizing across western China's mountain valleys and broad plains to deal with sympathy protests in Tibetan communities in the provinces of Gansu, Sichuan and Qinghai.
Officials expelled foreign reporters from Tibetan areas in Qinghai and Gansu provinces yesterday, while police in Lhasa kicked out reporters from three Hong Kong TV stations -- Cable TV, TVB and ATV -- and made TVB delete footage of Friday's violence, TVB reported.
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