The monks are part of a group of 432 people who were being held in Gansu province, Mao Shengwu, acting chief of the province's Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency.

Police have formally arrested another eight people, Mao told a group of foreign and Chinese journalists.

The violence in Tibet on March 14 came after days of peaceful protests in Lhasa against 57 years of Chinese rule and quickly spilled over into other parts of China inhabited by Tibetans.

Exiled Tibetan leaders say 150 people have died in the Chinese crackdown on the demonstrations. China insists it has acted with restraint and killed no one, while blaming Tibetan "rioters" for the deaths of 20 people.

Xinhua said violence in six areas in Gannan left 94 people injured.

Police in the province had released 1,870 of more than 2,200 people, including 413 monks, who had turned themselves in to police after the unrest, Mao said, adding that they were guilty of minor offences.

Mao said "some suspects were being interrogated according to law" and that "core participants" in the unrest had bound black strips of cloth to their foreheads and arms, "which showed the activities were organised."

"Judging from some cases, the rioters communicated with not only each other within the country, but also separatists based in foreign countries," he said, according to Xinhua.

Mao's comments came the same day that monks at a major Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Gansu province defied authorities to stage a protest in front of foreign reporters.

The incident at Labrang monastery marked the second time demonstrating monks upstaged a government-escorted foreign media tour of riot-hit Tibetan regions in as many months and indicated anti-China tensions continued to simmer.

About 15 Labrang monks approached reporters with banners and the banned Tibetan independence flag, shouting support for the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, said Caroline Puel, a journalist with France's Le Point magazine who witnessed the incident.

Monks at Labrang led a rally of up to 4,000 people on March 15, according to the Free Tibet Campaign.

Meanwhile, in the Tibetan capital Lhasa, some 70 monks at the Ramoche monastery were arrested on Monday, the Tibetan government-in-exile said Wednesday in a statement.

The monks had been earlier put under "tight restrictions in a house arrest-like situation" after they protested in mid-March, according to the exiled government, which is based in the north Indian town of Dharamshala.

Police in Lhasa have detained 953 people suspected of participating in the unrest, Qiangba Puncog, chairman of the Himalayan region, said Wednesday, though the official did not specify if monks were included in those detentions.

Among the detained, 403 were formally arrested, Qiangba said.

The unrest, the worst to hit the Himalayan region in decades, has come at an awkward time for Beijing at it prepares to host the summer Olympics, attracting the attention of the entire world.

earlier related report
Tibetan monks protest in front of foreign reporters: witness
Monks at a major Tibetan Buddhist monastery in northwest China defied authorities to stage a protest in front of foreign reporters on Wednesday, one of the journalists said.

The incident at Gansu province's Labrang monastery marked the second time demonstrating monks upstaged a government-escorted foreign media tour of riot-hit Tibetan regions in as many months and indicated anti-China tensions continued to simmer.

About 15 Labrang monks approached reporters with banners and the banned Tibetan independence flag, shouting support for the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, said Caroline Puel, a journalist with France's Le Point magazine who witnessed the incident.

"They said in Chinese, 'We want more freedom, more human rights and we want to see the Dalai Lama'," Puel told AFP by phone.

The protest lasted about 10 minutes and ended when government officials conducting the tour urged the foreign journalists to leave, she added.

Puel could not tell what the banners said because they were written in Tibetan.

China's official Xinhua news agency reported a group of monks had "interrupted" the media tour, putting their number at "about 20" but giving few other details.

Puel said the journalists' government minders seemed "very surprised" by the outburst.

On March 27, monks at the Jokhang temple in Lhasa interrupted a similar tightly-controlled media tour aimed at showing calm had returned to the Tibetan capital.

The Jokhang monks also called for the return of the Dalai Lama and denounced official Chinese versions of the Tibetan unrest as "lies".

Unrest spread across the Tibetan plateau after monks in Lhasa marked the March 10 anniversary of a failed uprising against Chinese rule with demonstrations that later spiralled out of control.

Full-scale rioting erupted in the city on March 14, spilling over into other areas such as Gansu.

Amid the unrest, monks at Labrang, one of Tibetan Buddhism's most important monasteries, led a rally of up to 4,000 people on March 15, according to the Free Tibet Campaign.

The Dalai Lama fled China after the 1959 uprising. China refuses to meet with him or to allow his return.

Beijing has responded to the unrest with a massive security clampdown on affected areas and has barred foreign journalists from those regions.

Tibetan exiled leaders say more than 150 people have been killed in the crackdown. China says it has killed no one, and blamed Tibetan "rioters" for the deaths of 20 people.

Puel said monks at Labrang told her that seven monks had been arrested following the March demonstrations.

A stop in the nearby town of Xiahe showed that normal life appeared to have returned, with children seen going to school and markets open, she added.

Tibet's regional chairman told a Beijing press conference on Wednesday that monks involved in the March 27 Lhasa protest would not be punished.

However, Qiangba Puncog added that could change "if we discover that they are involved in crimes."

There had been some concern that the Jokhang monks would be punished. Monks and nuns who have spoken out against Chinese rule have previously been jailed.

China has blamed the Tibet turmoil on agitators controlled by the Dalai Lama, denying that anger over alleged religious, cultural and political repression of Tibet had been a factor.

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