European Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering urged politicians to consider boycotting the Beijing Olympic Games to protest against China's crackdown on demonstrations in Tibet in which dozens may have died.

Politicians who had planned to attend the opening ceremony of the Games in August should reconsider, Poettering told German radio, adding he was not ruling out a wider boycott.

"It is too early to say how things will end up but one should keep all options open," Poettering said in an interview on Deutschlandfunk radio.

Poettering, a member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats, attacked China's response to the monk-led protests in Tibet.

"We cannot agree with what is happening in Tibet. The Chinese must realise that," said Poettering, adding repression and curbs to freedom of expression must stop if the Olympic Games were to be a success.

"We must send a signal to Beijing," he said.

Anti-China protests in Lhasa, the biggest in almost two decades, turned ugly on Friday and exiled representatives of Tibet in India have said as many as 80 people died.

China's premier Wen Jiabao has accused Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, of orchestrating riots, a charge he denies.

The Dalai Lama, who fled to India in 1959, wants autonomy for Tibet within China but not outright independence.

Merkel, along with other western leaders, has called on Beijing to exercise restraint but has refrained from calling for an outright boycott of the Olympic Games.

Reuters