China strongly dissatisfied with EU statement

China on Friday voiced its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to an EU statement which denounced the execution of two Tibetans convicted of murder in last year's Lhasa riot.

The Swedish EU presidency released a statement Thursday, denouncing the recent death penalty handed down to two Tibetans involved in the Lhasa riot and asking China to abolish the capital sentences.

"We are strongly dissatisfied with and firmly oppose the EU statement," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said in a news release.

The Lhasa violence involving beating, smashing, looting and burning in 2008 was a sabotage activity "premeditated, organized and masterminded" by the Dalai Lama group, who instigated Tibetan separatists in and out of China to fuel up the incident, Ma said.

China's legal institutions have carried out fair and open trials and brought only the culprits of the criminal activities to justice, he said. "This was China's internal affair and judicial sovereignty which allows no other country to interfere with."

China asks the EU to abide by the principles of equality and mutual respect and not to send any misleading signals to Tibetan separatists, so as to ensure sound and stable development of EU-China relations, Ma said.

Source: Xinhua