WONFIFTY

LUQU, China (AP) - More than a dozen Buddhist monks staged an emotional protest Wednesday in front of visiting journalists at a monastery in western China to call for the return of exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama.
The monks, whose numbers grew to about two dozen during the 10-minute incident, began shouting slogans in Tibetan in an outer courtyard as journalists entered a prayer hall at the monastery of Labrang in western Gansu province bordering Tibet.
«We want human rights, we want the Dalai Lama back, we want to preserve our religion and culture,» one of the monks told a reporter from the American Broadcasting Corporation. He spoke in Mandarin.
ABC reporter Chito Romana said the monks also displayed the snow lion pennant of independent Tibet, labeled a «reactionary flag» by China's communist regime.
He said Chinese Foreign Ministry handlers observed the protest but did not attempt to block the monks. They dispersed after senior monks appeared and calmed them down, Romana said.
A senior monk later told reporters that the protesters represented only a few of those at Labrang. He said they would not be punished by monastery authorities, but could face sanctions if authorities find that they broke the law, Romana said.
China's official Xinhua News Agency reported only that a group of monks had interrupted the event, and said the visit resumed soon afterward. The Associated Press was not invited on the government-arranged trip.
The incident followed a similar interruption during a closely scripted government media tour of Lhasa two weeks ago to view damage from deadly anti-government riots that erupted there last month.
Authorities have tightly restricted access to Tibet and Tibetan areas of western China where protests also broke out. The sometimes violent anti-government demonstrations were the largest and most sustained among Tibetans in almost two decades.
Just south of Labrang, armed police manned a roadblock leading from the town of Luqu toward Xicang monastery. Some monks from that monastery are believed to have taken part in the protests in mid-March.
The glass front of the town's police headquarters was riddled with holes from stones and other objects hurled by rioters. Notices on the walls urged protesters to surrender to authorities, while unarmed paramilitary police marched down the street and guarded government buildings.
The latest protest came as Tibet's governor said he was prepared for Tibet independence activists to cause «trouble» for the Olympic torch relay when it passes through the Himalayan region on its way to Mount Everest next month.
Champa Phuntsok, the Chinese-appointed head of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, said he believes supporters of the Dalai Lama, blamed by Beijing for instigating last month's unrest, will try to use the historic event to publicize their cause.
«For these separatist forces, the Olympics in Beijing will be a rare opportunity,» he told a news conference in Beijing. «Therefore they wish to create major troubles or incidents. I don't doubt they will create trouble during the torch relay in Tibet.
Thousands of raucous protesters angry about China's policies in Tibet and its human rights record have already disrupted the torch relay's round-the-world tour at stops in London and Paris.
Heavy security has been deployed in San Francisco, the next stop, after protesters there climbed the Golden Gate Bridge to hang the Tibetan flag earlier this week.
Champa Phuntsok said special security preparations had been made for the Tibet relay leg to ensure it would be «completely successful and safe.

«During the torch relay in Tibet and in climbing Mount Everest, if anyone should attempt to disrupt or undermine the torch relay, then they will be dealt with severely according to the law,» he said.
The torch relay, the longest in Olympic history, was aimed at showcasing China's rising economic and political power. Instead, Chinese leaders have come under increasing international criticism following its crackdown in March on massive anti-government demonstrations in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet.
China has said 22 people died in the violence while Tibetan exile groups say at least 140 were killed.
Foreign journalists, including an Associated Press reporter, were present at Lhasa's Jokhang temple, one of the holiest shrines in Tibet, when a group of monks interrupted a government media tour on March 27 with an emotional outburst.
Those monks had complained about the lack of religious freedom and called for the return of the Dalai Lama, their exiled spiritual leader.
A group of foreign diplomats taken to Jokhang around 8:30 a.m. two days after the protest were not allowed to meet the monks. A temple official told the diplomats that the monks were asleep, participants said.
Champa Phuntsok on Wednesday said those monks had not been punished for speaking out.
«We simply do not punish or execute monks for telling a different version. Of course their version is untrue,» he said.

BEIJING (AP) - More than 1,000 people have been arrested or turned themselves in to police because of deadly rioting last month in Tibet's capital of Lhasa, the city's deputy Communist Party secretary said.
Trials will be held before May 1, Wang Xiangming was quoted Thursday as saying by the official Tibet Commerce newspaper, an apparent sign of the government's determination to close the book on the violence well ahead of the Aug. 8 opening of the Beijing Olympic Games.
Wang's remarks offer the most complete picture yet of the scope of the crackdown on the largest and most sustained anti-government protests in Tibetan areas across western China in almost two decades.
Beijing has sent thousands of police and army troops to the area to maintain an edgy peace, hunt down protest leaders, and cordon-off Buddhist monasteries whose monks led protests that began peacefully on March 10 before turning violent four days later.
Wang said 800 had been arrested in the Lhasa violence, in which the government says 22 people died, while another 280 had surrendered to take advantage of a police offer of leniency.
Alongside the ramped-up security, the region's top officials have ordered boosted ideological education, an apparent acknowledgment that years of political indoctrination have failed to curb support for exiled Buddhist leader the Dalai Lama. China accuses the Dalai Lama and his followers of orchestrating the violence in a bid to sabotage the Olympic Games and achieve an independent state.
Such campaigns have exacerbated tensions in Tibet and the resentment they created are believed by experts and Tibetans to have fed the unrest.
Tibet's hard-line Communist Party leader has also ordered harsh punishment of local party officials found lacking in their political commitment to Beijing's official line during the protests and following crackdown.
The Tibet Daily newspaper on Thursday quoted Zhang Qingli as ordering officials to direct ideological education at young people, focusing on negative portrayals of Tibet prior to the Communist invasion in 1950 and continued vilification of the Dalai Lama's political agenda.
«Unceasingly build up the foundation of the masses to oppose separatism,» Zhang was quoted as saying.
While China has claimed overwhelming support for its policies in Tibet, it has had to impose repeated ideological campaigns and heighten restrictions over religious observance and monastic life.
Already, officials including the national police chief have ordered boosted «patriotic campaigns» in monasteries whose monks led the protests.
Zhang, meanwhile, appeared to indicate that at least some local officials had been insufficiently loyal during the recent unrest.
«We absolutely will not condone violations of political and organizational discipline and will definitely find those responsible and meet out harsh punishment,» said Zhang, a protege of President and party chief Hu Jintao, who was a top official in Tibet during the last major protests there in 1989.
Zhang, a former top official in Xinjiang, another ethnically troubled region, has reportedly already overseen the firing of dozens of ethnic Tibetan officials seen as politically unreliable.

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NEW DELHI (AP) - Indian soccer captain Bhaichung Bhutia has refused to carry the Beijing Olympic torch during its run through the Indian capital later this month in protest over China's crackdown on recent protests in Tibet.
The Indian Olympic Association, which is organizing the flame's run in New Delhi on April 17, invited several top Indian athletes to carry the torch, including Bhutia.
«It's a great honor that I have been chosen to carry the torch, but at the same time I am sorry to inform that it is not possible for me to take part in the torch run for personal reasons,» Bhutia told The Associated Press on Tuesday from Calcutta, the capital of West Bengal state, where he plays for a top local team.
Bhutia, among the first athletes to refuse to run with the torch, said he faxed his decision to the IOA on Monday.
«I strongly denounce the repression and torture unleashed by the Chinese authorities in Tibet,» said Bhutia, who is a Buddhist.
«This time the Olympics are going to be held in China. I don't want to carry this torch,» he added. «I have many Tibetan friends and I have taken this decision to show my solidarity with them.
The Olympic torch arrived in Beijing on Monday after demonstrations by a pro-Tibetan group during its passage from Ancient Olympia in Greece. The flame goes Tuesday to Almaty, Kazakhstan, at the start of a 20-country, 137,000-kilometer (85,100-mile) global journey with protests expected in several major cities.
Bhutia comes from India's northeastern Sikkim state, which borders China.
Tibetan exiles in India are highlighting their opposition to Chinese rule in Tibet with their own relay torch and by staging their own version of the Olympics on May 15-25 in Dharmsala, the headquarters of the Tibetan government-in-exile in northern India.

Dharmsala is home to the Dalai Lama _ the Tibetan spiritual leader _ who fled to India in 1959.
Last month, a Thai torchbearer, one of six chosen to bear the flame in Thailand, also withdrew from the relay, saying she wanted to protest China's actions in Tibet.
India's soccer team will not be competing at Beijing after Australia, Japan and South Korea claimed the three Asian qualification berths for the 2008 Olympic tournament.