China to step up re-education drive

BEIJING, CHINA - China warned yesterday it would step up a controversial 're-education' campaign for Tibetans after a fresh protest showed that a huge security crackdown had failed to extinguish nearly one month of unrest.

The state-run Tibet Daily reported a call by the government for Buddhist monks to become Chinese patriots, but activist groups said the heavy-handed techniques already employed in the campaign were inflaming tensions.

Efforts by the authorities to 're-educate' monks at a monastery in Sichuan province in south-west China led to a new protest there on Thursday.

According to the groups, protesters were demanding the release of two monks who were detained after paramilitary troops searched their monastery and found photographs of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader.

As the Olympic torch passes through London today, Tibetan activists and other groups have vowed to add further heat to the flame there.

Still, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has no regrets about its choice of Beijing to host the Olympics, its president said yesterday.

'IOC considers that it made a wise choice in awarding the Games to Beijing,' Mr Jacques Rogge told a news conference in Singapore in response to a question about China's human rights record.

In the Tibet Daily report, Tibet's deputy Communist Party chief told a group of influential monks that 'reinforcing patriotic education' was now a top priority.

'Especially reinforce education of young monks about the legal system so that they become patriots who love religion and observe discipline and law,' Mr Hao Peng said on Thursday at the ancient Tashilumpo monastery in Shigatse.

The International Campaign for Tibet said the re-education campaign typically involved forcing Tibetans to denounce the Dalai Lama, who fled his homeland in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule.