XILINHOT: Tight security was reported across China's restive Inner Mongolia region on Monday ahead of possible fresh protests by ethnic Mongols seething over Chinese rule, a rights group said.
The northern region bordering Mongolia has seen a wave of demonstrations triggered by the May 10 killing of an ethnic Mongol herder which have laid bare simmering resentment over what some perceive as Chinese oppression.
Universities and public squares were sealed off in a handful of cities -- a possible sign of mounting unease by authorities already jittery about anonymous online calls for nationwide protests emulating those in the Arab world.
Authorities are also likely fearful of another major outburst of ethnic turmoil following deadly unrest in Tibet in 2008 and the remote northwestern Xinjiang region in 2009.
"It's kind of sensitive around here right now," a uniformed police officer told AFP outside a vocational school in the old town of Xilinhot, the government seat of the Xilingol area -- the epicentre of the unrest.
Two local residents told AFP that students from the school had been involved in the protests, but declined to offer further details. AFP journalists were denied access to the premises, where police were guarding the entrance.
Armed police were also seen at a nearby middle school, but streets were open to traffic in the area, and AFP journalists did not see any signs of people gathering.
A male resident in the Left Ujumchin Banner, or Xiwuqi in Chinese -- another area hit by unrest -- said police were carrying out identity checks and stopping cars but roads were open. A banner is equivalent to a Chinese county.
The unrest -- which has involved thousands of protesters in different areas over the past week -- erupted after the herder, Mergen, was run over on May 10 by a truck driven by a member of China's dominant Han ethnic group.
In the last reported incident, hundreds of students and herders took to the streets of Chifeng on Saturday, according to the US-based Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Centre, which has many contacts in the region.
Riot police and soldiers quickly dispersed the demonstrators, it said in a statement.
The group had called for a regionwide protest on Monday "to demand the government of China respect the human rights, life and dignity of the Mongols in China and to resolve the case of Mergen in a just and fair manner."
Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011
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