Five Tibetans have died in police custody in southwestern China after a protest last week during which residents were shot and wounded, according to the exiled Tibetan government and other groups abroad.
The accounts described a flaring of tensions in a mountainous area of Sichuan Province that has long been in turmoil over the Chinese government’s rule.
The reports of deaths and bloodshed have not been confirmed by Chinese state news media, and public security and government officials in the region declined to comment when called repeatedly on Wednesday.
However, the Tibetan government in exile, in Dharamsala, India, said on Wednesday that five men had died in police custody after being detained following a protest last week in which the police shot at and used tear gas on an unarmed crowd in Ganzi Prefecture in Sichuan. Initially, reports from the exiled government and other groups said two men had died.
The region, known to Tibetans as Kardze or Garze, has long been a center of protest and defiance against the Chinese government.
Residents had gathered to demand that the government release a leader of the village of Shugpa in Ganzi, who had been detained after he complained “against the mistreatment and harassment of Tibetans by the Chinese authorities,” the Tibetan administration said on its Web site.
One of the detainees, Lo Palsang, killed himself in detention in Luoxu Township, the report said. Additionally, “an unidentified 22-year-old Tibetan youth succumbed to injuries sustained during the police firing,” it said.
Tsering Wangchuk, an officer in Dharamsala with the administration, said staff members there had spoken to people in the area who verified its accounts.
Later, the exiled Tibetan administration said it had confirmed the deaths of three more injured villagers who had been detained, echoing earlier reports from Radio Free Asia, a news service based in Washington, and Free Tibet, a group based in London. Free Tibet said on its Web site that the three additional victims were all relatives of the arrested village leader.
Contradicting the initial reports, the International Campaign for Tibet said on Tuesday that the security forces did not appear to have fired on the protesters with live ammunition.
“Some form of anti-riot projectiles were fired,” it said.
The reports said that Chinese security forces had inundated the village of Shugpa and that many of the men there had either fled or been detained.
The reports also said the authorities had denied medical treatment to detained men shot during the protest last week.
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