13. Mar 2009
Chinese police search houses in Lhasa for non-Tibetans
(Telegraph; SCMP) Security forces across Tibet are conducting extensive searches for "suspicious characters" ahead of the anniversary of the ethnic riots which shook Lhasa in March 2008. Mobile phone networks and internet servers have already been shut down so that activists cannot organise any protest. According to the South China Morning Post, police have not spared "a single hotel, guesthouse or local home" in the city. As well as Westerners, residents from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan have been banned, and even Tibetans from other parts of the region outside Lhasa. Anyone whose identification is not issued by the local government has been interrogated and even detained, according to local hotel and restaurant owners. The newspaper also said that major monasteries had been sealed and that armed police are on patrol night and day. Roadblocks and checkpoints have also been set up across the city. Locals also told the SCMP that a protest involving dozens of monks broke out on 09 March 2009 around the Sera monastery. At least half the monastery is now cordoned off and two military vehicles with up to 100 armed police have been deployed outside.