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Lhasa police fire tear gas at protesters

Chinese police fired tear gas to disperse a second day of protests in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa by hundreds of Buddhist monks demanding the region's independence, Radio Free Asia reported yesterday.

Up to 600 monks marched from their monastery to police headquarters on Tuesday to demand the release of monks detained a day earlier after a protest marking the anniversary of a 1959 uprising that was crushed by China, it said.

Some of the marchers on Tuesday shouted slogans such as "Free our people" and "We want an independent Tibet," the US-funded broadcaster said, quoting witnesses.

On arrival at police headquarters, they were confronted by "a couple of thousand" armed police officers, who fired tear gas to break up the gathering, it said.

The report did not mention whether any monks were detained in the confrontation.

An officer with the Public Security Bureau in Lhasa denied knowledge of any incident when contacted by phone yesterday.

Radio Free Asia initially reported that up to 300 monks had participated in the protests on Monday and that as many as 60 were arrested.

A foreign ministry spokesman later confirmed that local police had quashed the Monday protest and that some arrests had been made, but did not say how many.

Citing a Tibetan government official, China's state-run Xinhua news agency also said 300 monks had demonstrated on Monday, although there were no reports about Tuesday's apparent unrest.

The demonstrations coincided with the 49th anniversary of the crushing of a Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule by the People's Liberation. Exiled Tibetans staged protests around the world to mark the day.

Chinese troops killed tens of thousands of Tibetans as they quashed the 1959 uprising, Tibetan sources say.

The Dalai Lama fled his homeland following the uprising.
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