100 monks were arrested for protesting the detention of other monks.

As many as 100 Tibetans were arrested in northwest China on Thursday after they demonstrated against the earlier detention of monks from a nearby monastery, witnesses and a Tibetan human rights group said Friday.

Local residents reached by telephone on Friday said that the police beat and arrested people at an open-air market in Tongren, a town in Qinghai, a western province bordering Tibet, after they refused orders to leave.

The residents said the town was the scene of several disturbances in recent months, including an unauthorized gathering in February involving 300 monks who were dispersed by tear gas as they tried to make their way to a government building.

Few things more clearly exhibit the lack of freedom in Tibet than the phrase “unauthorized gathering.”