Beijing students "pray for souls of the dead"

By Ian Ransom

BEIJING (Reuters) - Dozens of students held a candle-lit sit-down protest at a university for ethnic minorities in Beijing on Monday, bringing pro-Tibetan demonstrations to the sensitive capital for the first time.

One student said the protest was "to pray for the souls of the dead".

The protest in the Olympic Games host city came hours before a deadline for rioters in Lhasa to turn themselves in after street violence in the capital of the Buddhist Himalayan region in which dozens are believed to have died.

About 40 students staged the sit-down at the Central University for Nationalities in Beijing after many were taken away, onlookers said.

Any student protest in Beijing is significant, bringing back memories of the pro-democracy student protests around Tiananmen Square in 1989 which were crushed by the military with great loss of life.

Teachers were urging their students to get up and leave the protest.

"Originally I wanted to participate, but people dragged me way," one Tibetan student from Gansu province said. "I have a friend in there and I am worried for her."

Later she said by text message: "It was only to pray for the souls of the dead."

The protest ended when students headed back to their dormitories after a few hours.

China said on Monday it had shown great restraint in the face of violent protests by Tibetans, which it said were orchestrated by followers of the Dalai Lama seeking to wreck the Beijing Olympics in August.

The governor of Tibet said no guns had been used against protesters in Lhasa, but troops poured into neighbouring areas to enforce control as the regional capital counted down to a midnight deadline for protesters to give up.

(Writing by Nick Macfie)