Reuters brings us the news that the Tibetan advocacy groups Free Tibet and the International Campaign for Tibet, working with unnamed sources within Tibet, are now reporting that between one and three Tibetans have been killed, many more wounded, and thousands more fired upon by police in Sichuan province yesterday.
The Tibetans were demonstrating in front of Chinese government offices in Luhuo (near Chengdu) in protest of “arrests earlier in the day in connection with the distribution of pamphlets carrying the slogan ‘Tibet Needs Freedom’ and declaring that more Tibetans were ready to stage self-immolations to challenge Chinese rule.”
The Los Angeles Times notes that the incident almost immediately follows the publication of Human Rights Watch’s 2012 World Report, which was highly critical of the Chinese government’s repression of Tibetans and other ethnic minorities. (The New York Times reports on China’s own account of the incident here.)