Tibetan nuns prepare breakfast at the Taibaling Nunnery in Shyusong village near the China-Tibet border. Some 130 Tibetan nuns currently study at the nunnery. Chinese officials are expanding their political education programs in Tibetan monasteries; the classes demand that monks and nuns denounce their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

Beijing ? A top Chinese security official has criticized Tibetan Buddhist monks for taking part in anti-government protests, touring three key monasteries in Lhasa to drive home China’s message.

Public Security Minister Meng Jianzhu announced that “patriotic education” classes would be expanded at monasteries, the Tibet Daily reported Tuesday. His visit was the first by a high-level central government official since protests in the Tibetan capital turned violent this month.

Unrest among Buddhist clergy has been blamed in part on the widely reviled classes, which force monks to make ritual denouncements of their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and declare loyalty to Beijing.

Monks and nuns who refuse to cooperate can be jailed. The U.S. State Department said in its 2007 report on religious freedom around the world that dozens of Tibetan clergy were serving prison terms for their resistance to “patriotic” or political education.

Despite such complaints – and repeated government claims that all Tibetans support the Chinese government’s stance – Meng said during his trip to Lhasa on Monday that the campaign should be expanded in a bid to “grasp and direct public opinion in the correct direction.”

“Deeply enact propaganda education in ethnic and religious policies and the legal system among all the temples,” he was quoted as saying. “Let all people at home and abroad and all ethnic groups thoroughly understand the true facts of the matter.”

In visits to Jokhang Temple, Tibet’s most sacred shrine, as well as Sera and Drepung monasteries, where the initial protests were launched March 10, Meng criticized the monks for participating in the protests.

“Every religion should carry out their activities according to the law and should never undermine national solidarity,” he was quoted as saying by the official state news agency Xinhua. “Participating in the riot essentially violated the doctrines of Tibetan Buddhism.”

He was accompanied by Zhang Qingli, Tibet’s hard-line Communist Party leader, who said the region was in the front lines of a battle with the Dalai Lama and his followers. “From start to finish, we face a prolonged, extreme, complex struggle,” he said.

Their harsh words signaled China’s intention to keep a hard-line stance in its dealings with Tibet.

The uprising is the broadest and most sustained against Chinese rule in almost two decades and sparked demonstrations in neighboring provinces in western China. Thousands of troops and police have been deployed to contain the unrest.

The government says at least 22 people have died in Lhasa; Tibetan rights groups say nearly 140 Tibetans were killed, including 19 in Gansu province.

The protests have put China’s human rights record under an international spotlight, embarrassing and frustrating the communist leadership, which hoped for a smooth run-up to the Beijing Olympics in August.

On Tuesday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy suggested that a boycott the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics was a possibility – the first world leader to raise the prospect of punishing China over its ongoing crackdown in Tibet.

The United States, Britain and Germany all condemned China for using force against Tibetan protesters, but they stopped short of threatening to boycott the games or the Aug. 8 opening ceremony.