American film crew kept from China protests (CNN)

[eppur_se_muova]

(CNN) -- Chinese authorities sequestered an American film crew in their hotel rooms so they would not see anti-government protests outside a Buddhist temple last week, a member of the crew said.

Spence Palermo, an American working on a freelance documentary about how China is changing, said his crew was prevented from returning to the centuries-old Labrang Monastery in Xiahe, China, after spending several days filming inside the complex.

Newsweek magazine reported Monday that as many as 4,000 monks and laypersons clashed with police near the monastery Friday and Saturday. The report said they marched to Xiahe "where they pelted government offices and police vehicles with rocks and debris."

The Xiahe protests were part of a wave of anti-Chinese protests centered in nearby Tibet, an autonomous province of China taken over by the Communist government in Beijing almost 60 years ago.

According to the U.S. State Department, Beijing's "repressive social and political controls continued to limit the fundamental freedoms of Tibetans and risked undermining Tibet's unique cultural, religious, and linguistic heritage."
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more: http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/03/17/tibet.american/index.html