BEIJING (Reuters) - A dispute over the price of balloons in an ethnically Tibetan town in western China sparked a clash between thousands of residents and police, a source with knowledge of the incident said on Sunday.
Several thousand Tibetans in Tongren, Qinghai province,threw stones and attacked police for over an hour during LunarNew Year celebrations on Thursday night, the source, whodeclined to be named, told Reuters.
The clash happened after a group of Tibetan youths wereinvolved in a scuffle with a Muslim trader of the Hui ethnicgroup, the source said.
"Members of the crowd ... tried to intervene, and then beatthe policemen, who ran away. Rumours that the police had beatup some local youths spread through the crowd, and many otherpolice were beaten or chased away, leading to large-scaleunrest," the source said.
A contingent of People's Armed Police, or paramilitaryforce, later arrived to restore order, firing tear gas anddetaining about 100 people.
Up to 20 of the police, who were all Tibetans, were takento hospital, and two police cars were overturned during therioting, the source said.
Authorities released 90 of the detained, and the remaining10 were freed the following morning, after protesters gatheredoutside government offices and monks at local monasteriesthreatened to boycott new year rituals and dance ceremoniesscheduled for later that day.
"This suggests the local government also decided theincidents were a reaction to excessive force, not a protestabout China's role in Tibet," the source said.
A notice from Tongren county authorities called for calmand said police were holding "people whose mistakes areconsidered heavy for further investigation".
"The county government asks all nationalities ...voluntarily to protect the security of the county," thestatement said.
Calls placed to Tongren government offices seeking commentwent unanswered.
Relations between mainly Buddhist Tibetans and the Hui, aMuslim minority numbering about 10 million in China, have longbeen tense.
Ethnic tensions between Chinese minorities and the dominantHan, who account for about 90 percent of China's 1.3 billionpeople, regularly spill over into violence, particularly in thecountry's unsettled western regions.
In November, an altercation between a Han Chinese shopownerand Tibetan monks in rural Tibet's Naqu district led tohundreds of Tibetan herdsmen smashing shops owned by HanChinese.
(Reporting by Ian Ransom and Benjamin Kang Lim; Editing byAlex Richardson)
