By BRIAN SPEGELE
BEIJING—Security forces in a restive Tibetan region of China killed a second person in as many days, according to state-run media, amid intensifying riots and growing international criticism that could overshadow a landmark visit to the U.S. next month by Vice President Xi Jinping.
The state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday that police opened fire on rioters in Seda county in China's western Sichuan province on Tuesday. The county is in the Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, which has become a hot spot of Tibetan political activism and the site of protests and multiple self-immolations by Tibetans in recent months.
Xinhua quoted local police on Wednesday as saying rioters attacked a police station with stones, knives and gasoline bottles Tuesday afternoon, and that 14 police were injured. The London-based advocacy group Free Tibet said at least two Tibetans were killed in the incident and others were injured.
The accounts couldn't be verified with residents in Seda on Wednesday. Officials from the Foreign Ministry in Beijing couldn't be reached for comment. Government offices were closed for Lunar New Year celebrations.
The clash followed a similar incident on Monday in Luhuo county, also in the Ganzi autonomous prefecture. In that case, China confirmed one person was killed after a mob stormed local shops and a bank and damaged police vehicles, though officials didn't say how the person died. Free Tibet said two protesters were shot and killed in Monday's incident, among at least 36 people shot by security forces.
The violent clashes with police come as a wave of self-immolations by Tibetans puts the region on edge. At least 16 people have set themselves on fire since March in what Tibetans have described as a response to heightened government repression of Tibetan Buddhist monastic activities and an expression of growing desperation over Tibetan political and cultural autonomy. The self-immolations and clashes with security forces represent the region's worst violence since deadly riots rocked a number of locations, including the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, in 2008.
Read more at the Wall Street Journal
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