This past Thursday, we shared this breaking news via The Guardian: “Chinese authorities have carried out their first executions of Tibetans in connection with the deadly riots that swept Lhasa last year, according to exile groups.”
Now, the number of confirmed deaths is two, not four. Will those two other deaths be confirmed?
The Guardian’s update from today:
The Chinese government has confirmed it executed two Tibetans for deadly arson attacks during last year’s unrest in Lhasa – the first reported judicial killings in the region for six years.
A foreign ministry spokesman, Ma Zhaoxu, said two men had been put to death, and declined to provide further details. Overseas Tibetan groups have identified the dead as Lobsang Gyaltsen and Loyak.
Lobsang Gyaltsen was sentenced to death this year for an arson attack that killed a shop owner in Lhasa, according to a report at the time by Xinhua news agency. Loyak was handed the same penalty for starting a blaze at a motorcycle shop that killed five people, the agency said.
The US-funded Radio Free Asia said Lobsang Gyaltsen was allowed a visit by his mother before he was executed. “I have nothing to say, except please take good care of my child and send him to school,” he was quoted as telling her.
There has been no confirmation of two other executions reported last Thursday by the campaign group Free Tibet.
The British Foreign Office minister Ivan Lewis condemned the executions. “We respect China’s right to bring those responsible for the violence in Tibet last year to justice.
“But the UK opposes the death penalty in all circumstances, and we have consistently raised our concerns about lack of due process in these cases in particular,” he said.
