Police closed off Lhasa’s Muslim quarter on April 4, two weeks after Tibetan rioters burned down the city’s mosque during the largest anti-Chinese protests in nearly two decades. Officers blockaded streets into the area, allowing in only area residents and worshippers observing the Muslim day of prayer. A heavy security presence continued in other parts of Lhasa’s old city as cleanup crews waded through the destruction inflicted when days of initially peaceful protests turned deadly on March 14. It was not clear why the area was cordoned off, although rioters had targeted businesses belonging to Chinese Muslim migrants known as Hui, who control much of Lhasa’s commerce. The protests were the most-sustained challenge to China’s rule in the Himalayan region since 1989. The protests had started out peacefully among monks in Lhasa on March 10, the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule. But four days later, they spiralled into violence. Tibetans torched hundreds of buildings and attacked members of China’s dominant Han ethnic group and Hui Muslims. But Dalai Lama raised concerns that China’s portrayal of the protests in Lhasa, focusing on attacks by Tibetans against Han Chinese, was fanning the flames of ethnic conflict.
A staffer at the China Tibet Information Centre said there are an estimated 1,500 Muslims in Lhasa. Officials with the Lhasa government and Religious Affairs Bureau said they did not know how many Muslims were in the city.