TWO weeks of protests against China's rule of Tibet have left about 130 people dead, an exiled Tibetan leader says as the unrest threatened to overshadow the lighting of the Olympic torch.
Amid the controversy, China called for the world to unite in opposition to any campaigns linking the Games to Tibet or any other political issue, as it maintained a lockdown of the areas where protests have taken place.
Tibet's prime minister-in-exile, Samdhong Rinpoche, said today from his base in Dharamshala, India, that about 130 people had been confirmed killed in a Chinese crackdown on the protests, up from a figure of 99 given last week.
The protests began in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa on March 10 to mark the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising against China's rule of Tibet.
The protests turned violent four days later in Lhasa, with Tibetan rioters killing 19 innocent civilians and one policeman in Lhasa, according to the Chinese government.
Protests then spread to other areas of China with ethnic Tibetan populations.
Criticism
The ensuing crackdown has come under criticism because foreign reporters and other independent monitors have been barred from the hotspot areas, amid reports of a massive military build-up.
Beijing has repeatedly accused exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama of masterminding the protests, and that the unrest was a deliberate campaign to sabotage the Games.
The Olympics are set to be drawn more closely into the controversy with the torch for this August's Games being lit tonight in Olympia in southwestern Greece, where the ancient Olympics were born in 776 BC.
The Olympic flame is to pass over Mount Everest in Tibet in early May, and through the region's capital of Lhasa, the scene of the most violent protests, the following month.
The lighting of the flame will trigger a wave of global protests against Chinese authorities over Tibet and a range of other issues, such as China's record on human rights and religious freedoms, activists groups said.
China's official Xinhua news agency published a commentary today calling for global opposition to such campaigns.
"In the run-up to the Games, the international community, true sports lovers and opponents of violence should be prepared for a further farce,'' Xinhua said.
"They must stand fast against any attempt to undermine the Olympics, as the event not only belongs to Beijing and China but is a solemn international event that should never be disturbed by politics.''
International Olympic Committee chief Jacques Rogge said he saw no sign of international support for a boycott of the Beijing Games.
Crackdown continues
Meanwhile, China showed no signs of buckling to calls for independent monitoring of the crackdown.
Foreign reporters remained banned from entering Lhasa, while China has also kept a tight lid across a huge swathe of land bordering Tibet and nearby.
In Nepal, at least 245 Tibetans were detained today after police baton-charged a pro-Tibet rally near a United Nations office in Kathmandu, police and a witness said.
Police used bamboo batons to break up a crowd of about 500 Tibetan protesters carrying placards calling for a "Free Tibet,'' an AFP reporter at the scene said.
Death toll 130 as Olympic torch lit
In Beijing, a former factory worker who organised a petition linking human rights improvements to the Olympics was sentenced to five years in jail for subversion today, his sister said.
Yang Chunlin, 52, had gone on trial in Jiamusi city in the northern province of Heilongjiang after collecting more than 10,000 signatures for a petition entitled: "We want human rights, not the Olympics''.
Yang's case is one of two dissident trials being closely watched overseas ahead of the Olympics.
The other involves prominent dissident and human rights campaigner Hu Jia, who went on trial in Beijing last week also for subversion, according to his laywers.
