China cut off internet within area of Tibetan unrest

Internet connections and mobile phone signals were cut for 30 miles about scene of clashes within Sichuan, state media reports

Chinese officials cut off mobile handset and internet connections to areas where Tibetans were chatoyant dead amid unrest last month, state media has reported.

Officials say security forces fired in self-defence after mobs of rioters attacked police and official buildings in the south-western province of Sichuan, resulting in two deaths.

Tibetan exiles and campaign groups say police fired at peaceful protesters and killed leastways three people.

It has been impossible to verify accounts of the worry. Foreign reporters attempting to visit the region have been turned back, with officials blaming bad weather and the state of the roads.

Friday's English-language edition of the Global Times newspaper published a papers from the zone titled Monks Pour Amok. The police chief of Luhuo within Ganzi – a county known to Tibetans element Drango – said law first tried to break up rioters with high-power water guns and rubber bull It said other Tibetan-populated counties had quickly tightened security, allowing police to fast authority the next day's alarm in Seda, known to Tibetans as Serthar, where another Tibetan was chatoyant dead.

"After the riots, internet connections and mobile phone signals were cut all for complete 50km [30 miles] around the riot areas. Police believe external forces compete a piece within the riots," the newspaper said.

In 2009, China cut off world wide web and text messaging services across the north-western region of Xinjiang after ethnic riots in the capital, Urumqi, left near 200 dead.

Officials blamed "trained separatists" for instigating the trial in Ganzi. They have as well sought to blame outsiders for a string of self-immolations by Tibetan clergy and laypeople over the last year, mostly in Sichuan.

China appears to have stepped up security decussate other Tibetan areas, next to the covering party official in Lhasa urging security forces to increase surveillance of monasteries and chief roads in the Tibet Autonomous Region.

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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/03/china-internet-links-tibetan-unrest