Beijing - Chinese police said they shot protesters during violent Tibet-related unrest in the south-western province of Sichuan, the official news agency Xinhua reported Friday, in the first admission by government authorities that guns were used against Tibetan protesters. Police opened fire in self-defence during unrest Sunday in the town of Aba, where members of China's Tibetan minority live, Xinhua said, citing police sources.
In an initial report, Xinhua said four people were killed but later corrected the story to say four people were injured by the gunshots.
Authorities had previously insisted that Chinese security forces had not used any lethal weapons. The spokesman for China's Foreign Affairs Ministry on Thursday denied that security forces had used guns to quell Tibetan independence protests outside the Tibet Autonomous Region.
"They showed maximum restraint," Qin Gang said when asked about the reaction of paramilitary police to widespread protests in Sichuan, the neighbouring province of Gansu and other Tibetan areas.
"They did not use or take any lethal weapons," Qin told reporters.
However, a source in Aba town told Deutsche Presse-Agentur
