Police officers surround Tibetan protestors before arresting them at Chaku, 11 km (7 miles) away from the Nepal-Tibet border July 1, 2008. Nepali police detained dozens of burgundy-robed Tibetan monks and nuns marching to the Tibetan border on Tuesday to protest against a crackdown on anti-China demonstrators earlier this year. REUTERS/Gopal Chitrakar (NEPAL)

Nepali police detained dozens of burgundy-robed Tibetan monks and nuns marching to the Tibetan border on Tuesday to protest against a crackdown on anti-China demonstrators earlier this year.

Twenty-three monks, 17 nuns and two Tibetan men were picked up from Chaku, near the Friendship Bridge in the border town of Liping, the only international gateway to Tibet.

Looking tired and weak after their week-long march from Kathmandu, the monks and nuns were hauled by police into a windowless goods truck without any resistance.

"I want to see Tibet by my own eyes," said 19-year-old monk Ngawang Tsundu, before being picked up with other monks and nuns, weeping and begging the police to let them go.

The march was the latest in a series of protests by the exiled Tibetans in Nepal since deadly anti-government riots in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, in mid-March.

Those riots started after protests during the anniversary of a 1959 failed uprising against Chinese rule.

Police said they had been instructed not to let the protesters cross the border with Tibet.

Nepal, where more than 20,000 exiled Tibetans live, is the second-biggest home for them outside Tibet after neighbouring India.

Nepali authorities have detained thousands of Tibetan exiles during protests since then and freed them later.

But Beijing, a key aid donor and trade partner of impoverished Nepal, wants Kathmandu to do more to crush the anti-China protests. Nepal considers Tibet part of China and has banned protests by the refugees.



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