23. Sep 2007
Tibetan schoolboys detained
Human Rights Watch (HRW) have called on the Chinese government to immediately release seven Tibetan high school students detained on suspicion of writing pro-Tibetan independence slogans on buildings. One of the detainees, aged 14, is reported to have been badly beaten during or after the arrest. The seven male students, all from nomad families, are studying at the Amchok Bora village secondary school, in Labrang (Chin. Xiahe) county, Gannan prefecture in Gansu province. Four of the boys are 15 years old and three are 14. HRW said that police detained some 40 students on or around 07 September. The students were alleged to have written slogans calling for the return of the Dalai Lama and a free Tibet the previous day on the walls of the village police station and on other walls in the village.