Chinese Court Sentences 30 to Prison in Lhasa Rioting

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Also Tuesday, the advocacy group Human Rights Watch released a report documenting that Chinese lawyers who argue cases the government considers politically sensitive or potentially embarrassing face consequences including harassment, assault and loss of license.

Jiang Yu, China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, dismissed the report, saying the group is biased against China. She said the accused in Tibet were dealt with according to the law "in a fair and just way."

Nicholas Bequelin, China researcher for Human Rights Watch, said lawyers were pressured to stay away from the Tibet cases "to prevent people from mounting a vigorous defense and to keep Chinese repression in Tibet under wraps."

The Chinese government has insisted that its handling of the Tibetan unrest is an internal matter and that outsiders led by the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, incited people to sabotage China's hosting of the Olympics. Chinese officials recently announced that they would contact the Dalai Lama's envoy to see if there was a basis for discussions, but Jiang told reporters Tuesday that "the specifics of the contact and consultation are still to be further discussed."

A spokesman for the Dalai Lama, who has denied instigating protests and has long said he is willing to accept Tibet as a part of China, said the Chinese have made only spoken contact with the envoy.

Meanwhile, three pro-Tibet activists were denied entry to Hong Kong, where the torch relay is set to resume on Friday. The Reuters news agency reported that a senior official acknowledged the incident might have hurt Hong Kong's image of openness but said the Chinese territory should be judged by its positive overall record of allowing protests.

Correspondent Edward Cody and researcher Liu Liu contributed to this report.