NEW DELHI, Jan 11 (AFP) - Some 125 Tibetan exiles staged a demonstration here Saturday to demand the release of a 30-year-old Tibetan jailed in China on charges of spying for the Dalai Lama.

The protestors, mainly school children, sang peace songs and shouted slogans denouncing China during an hour-long gathering in the centre of the Indian capital.

The Tibetan Freedom Movement, which organised the demonstration, urged China to free Ngawang Choephel, who went missing in August 1995 while he was in Tibet to make a documentary on traditional Tibetan medicine.

Chinese authorities admitted to holding him in October last year. In December, he was sentenced to 18 years in jail by a Chinese court on charges of spying.

Choephel's 59-year-old mother, Sonam Dekyi, who on Friday issued a plea demanding to see her only son, wept and collapsed at Saturday's protest. She was revived by other exiles.

India is home to the Dalai Lama's government-in-exile, which is not recognised by any country, and some 100,000 Tibetans. The Dalai Lama came to India in 1959 after a failed anti-Chinese uprising in Tibet.