TONGREN, China — Protests spread from Tibet into three neighboring provinces Sunday as Tibetans defied a Chinese government crackdown, while the Dalai Lama decried what he called the "cultural genocide" taking place in his homeland.
Demonstrations widened to Tibetan communities in Sichuan, Qinghai and Gansu provinces, forcing authorities to mobilize security forces across a broad expanse of western China.
In Tongren, riot police sent to prevent protests set off tensions when they took up positions outside a monastery. Dozens of monks, defying a directive not to gather in groups, marched to a hill where they set off fireworks and burned incense in what one monk said was a protest, according to an Associated Press reporter at the scene.
In a sign that authorities were preparing for trouble, AP and other foreign journalists were ordered out of the Tibetan parts of Gansu and Qinghai provinces by police who told them it was for their "safety."
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Meanwhile, police in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, searched buildings as a deadline today loomed for people who took part in a violent anti-Chinese uprising last week to surrender or face severe punishment.
Speaking from India, the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetans, called for an international investigation into China's crackdown on demonstrators in Lhasa, which his exiled government claims left 80 people dead. China's state media said 10 civilians were killed.
"Whether intentionally or unintentionally, some kind of cultural genocide is taking place," the Dalai Lama said, referring to an influx of Chinese migrants into Tibetan areas and restrictions on Buddhist practices — policies that have generated deep resentment among Tibetans.
Sunday's demonstrations follow nearly a week of protests in Lhasa that escalated into violence Friday, with Tibetans attacking Chinese and torching their shops, in the longest and fiercest challenge to Chinese rule in nearly two decades.
Complicating Beijing's task, the spreading protests fall two weeks before China's celebrations for the Beijing Olympics kick off with the start of the torch relay, which will pass through Tibet.
Though many were small in scale, the widening Tibetan protests are forcing Beijing to pursue suppression while on the run, from town to town and province to province across its vast western region.
The Chinese government attempted to control what the public saw and heard about protests that erupted Friday. Access to YouTube.com, usually readily available in China, was blocked after videos appeared on the site Saturday showing foreign news reports about the Lhasa demonstrations, montages of photos, and scenes from Tibet-related protests abroad.
Thubten Samphel, a spokesman for the Dalai Lama's government, said several people inside Tibet had counted at least 80 corpses since the violence broke out Friday.
He did not know how many of the bodies were protesters. The figures could not be independently verified because China restricts foreign media access to Tibet.
In Lhasa, hundreds of armed police and soldiers patrolled the streets on Sunday. Hong Kong Cable TV reported some 200 military vehicles in the city center.
Westerners who were told to leave Lhasa and arrived by plane in the city of Chengdu said they heard gunshots and explosions throughout Saturday and overnight.
"The worst day was yesterday. It was completely chaotic. There was running and screaming in the street," said Gerald Scott Flint, director of the medical aid group Volunteer Medics Worldwide, who had been in Lhasa four days.
The unrest in Tibet began March 10 on the anniversary of a 1959 uprising against Chinese rule of the region. Tibet was effectively independent for decades before communist troops entered in 1950.
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