In absentia.

• Chinese security forces opened fire on protesters on January 23 and 24, killing at least two people and injuring several dozen more. Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, confirmed that one protester, Norpa Yonten, was killed on January 23, after protests erupted in Luhuo Town (Draggo or Drango in Tibetan), and a second was killed after police opened fire in Seda Town (Serta in Tibetan) during protests on January 24. Both towns are in the Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous prefecture (Kardze in Tibetan) in Sichuan province, where tensions have been building following a growing number of protests and self-immolations there and in surrounding areas in recent months. Due to tight security imposed on the region, details of the sequence of events and nature of the protests, as well as the number of people wounded or detained, are difficult to verify. Some Tibetan exile groups report there may have been up to eight other deaths in the Luhuo and Seda incidents.

• Human Rights Watch said that the number of protests across the region appears to be rising rapidly, with other incidents reported this week in Sichuan and Qinghai provinces, which have large Tibetan populations. A protest involving an estimated 700 Tibetans took place following the latest self-immolation, that of Lobsang Jamyang, a former monk from Andou monastery (Andu in Tibetan) in Aba (Ngaba in Tibetan) in Sichuan Province, on January 14, 2012.

• The Chinese government should immediately investigate the response of security forces to the protests and open Tibetan areas to access by international media and observers, including United Nations rapporteurs, Human Rights Watch said. It should also send high-level officials to engage directly with Tibetan community representatives about the issues underlying the self-immolations and popular protests.

• “As protests and immolations increase in number and spread geographically, the Chinese government must engage in serious discussion about Tibetans’ fundamental grievances,” [HRW China director Sophie] Richardson said. “The Obama administration should make this issue a priority during Vice President Xi Jinping’s visit to the United States next month, urging restraint and the establishment of genuine dialogue.”