(dpa) - A group of monks on Thursday used a government-organized trip of foreign journalists to Lhasa to stage a protest against Chinese rule, the correspondents reported.
The monks interrupted the journalists' trip to Jokhang Temple, considered Tibetan Buddhism's most sacred site, by shouting about the lack of freedoms in Tibet and denying China's claims that the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, fomented the riots of two weeks ago.
In its only reference to the protests, the state-run news agency Xinhua said monks "disrupted" the tour of 26 hand-picked journalists from 19 media organization.
The journalists arrived for their highly regimented, three-day trip Wednesday as China sought to quiet criticism that it was barring independent journalists from Tibetan areas where demonstrations and unrest have broken out since March 10, the 49th anniversary of a failed Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule.
Three days later, those protests escalated into riots in Lhasa. The Chinese government has said 22 people were killed in the violence there, but the India-based Tibetan government in exile said it confirmed the deaths of about 140 people, many of them Tibetans shot by Chinese police.