BEIJING, March 17 (Reuters) - Dozens of students held a sit-down protest at a university for ethnic minorities in Beijing on Monday, bringing pro-Tibetan demonstrations to the sensitive capital for the first time.
The protest in the Olympic Games host city came hours before a deadline for rioters in Lhasa to turn themselves in after street violence in the capital of the Buddhist Himalayan region in which dozens are believed to have died.
About 40 students were staging the sit-down at the Central University for Nationalities in Beijing after many were taken away, onlookers said.
Any student protest in Beijing is significant, bringing back memories of the pro-democracy student protests around Tiananmen Square in 1989 which were crushed by the military with great loss of life.
Teachers were urging their students to get up and leave the protest. (less info)