More Beijing Olympics news

China has announced a sweeping security operation in Lhasa to ensure no anti-Chinese unrest rocks the Tibetan capital during the Beijing Olympic Games in just 10 days.

After an emergency meeting at the weekend, the Tibet authorities on Wednesday ordered the cancellation of all holidays for police and all other security personnel until after the August 8-24 Games.

Security in Lhasa has been tight, with paramilitary People’s Armed Police patrolling the streets, since a deadly riot on March 14 when angry Tibetans rampaged through the town setting fire to shops and attacking ethnic Han Chinese. A total of 22 people were killed, mostly Han residents who appeared to have been targeted in a rare outburst of ethnic violence.

China says followers of the Dalai Lama, the region’s exiled Buddhist leader, fomented the riot and subsequent protests that swept the region in the ensuing weeks, forcing the deployment of troops in many Tibetan-populated areas to maintain order.

The official Tibet Daily announced an even tougher policing policy for Lhasa for the period of the Olympics when any shows of defiance by anyone favouring Tibetan independence would embarrass the ruling Communist Party before a worldwide audience.

To ensure "absolute security without a single lapse", police will redouble guards at major buildings such as airports and railway stations, strengthen border controls and seek to expand international efforts to stifle anti-China activists.

The report, citing a meeting of the Tibet public security office, said: "We must further improve anti-terror plans, and take swift measures against all forms of violence and terrorist activities."

The six-point order called for closer work with international security organisations to police the border. China has pressed India and Nepal, where many thousands of exiled Tibetans have made their homes, to do more to control pro-Tibet independence groups in their countries.

The security forces must “resolutely smash the separatist activities of the Dalai clique”, the report said. “Civilian police will cancel all two-day weekend vacations. All police will be mobilised. All police will be in action. The police will be fully devoted to Olympic security work with a high sense of political responsibility.”

The security operation extends to the neighbouring far western Muslim region of Xinjiang. The 4,299 public buses in the regional capital, Urumqi, will carry security inspectors up to and during the Games, the Legal Daily reported.

In recent weeks, the authorities have given additional publicity to their concerns about a threat to the games posed by separatist militants in Xinjiang, saying members of the Uighur minority are bent on disrupting the Olympics and even had plans to kidnap athletes and journalists.

At the weekend, a video emerged from a previously unknown group calling itself the Turkistan Islamic Party and claiming responsibility for bus bombings in Shanghai and in southern Yunnan province in the last few weeks. However, China was swift to dismiss the claims.

That has thrown a spotlight on the issue of China’s credibility regarding its statements on the domestic terror threat, raising doubts as to whether Beijing may have been exaggerating the risks to justify its sweeping security crackdown around the Olympics.

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