Four Tibetans may have been shot by police in a conflict over gold mining operations in the region. From Agence-France Presse:
At least four Tibetans may have been killed and 30 others hurt when Chinese police fired on crowds protesting the expansion of mine operations blamed for environmental damage, a report said Saturday.
The shooting occurred August 17 in a remote region of southwestern China’s Sichuan province with a history of seething unrest involving the area’s Tibetan community, US-based Radio Free Asia said.
Quoting exiled Tibetans with sources in the region, the report said the confrontation began on or around August 13 when a group of Tibetans went to the Palyul county government headquarters to protest.
They complained that stepped-up Chinese gold-mining operations had brought large numbers of people and heavy machinery to the area, damaging farmland and the local grassland habitat, it said.