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Summary
China on Tuesday confirmed it had executed two people for their involvement in deadly riots in Tibet last year. The International Campaign for Tibet, which rallies for self-rule for the restive mountain region in far-west China, said on Monday that Lobsang Gyaltsen and Loyak were executed for arson-related crimes committed in Lhasa, the regional capital, in March last year. Tibetans sometimes use just one name. Tibetan protests against Chinese rule, led by Buddhist monks on March 14 last year, gave way to violence, with rioters torching shops and turning on residents, especially Han Chinese, who many Tibetans see as intruders threatening their culture. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu did not give any details about the executions, the first ones officially confirmed to have been carried out in connection with the unrest. However, he said that two death sentences have been carried out over the violence, which Beijing blamed on the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader. He has repeatedly denounced those claims.
