Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Tibetan monk sets fire to himself in latest anti-China protest

Tibetan monk sets fire to himself in latest anti-China protest

Monk, 19, is second person to self-immolate in three days and the 23rd to do so in the last year
A Tibetan monk set himself alight in south-west China on Monday, an overseas Tibetan rights group said, in the latest reported incident of anti-Chinese protest.
The Free Tibet group said Lobsang Gyatso, 19, set fire to himself in Aba county, known as Ngaba in Tibetan, in Sichuan province.
"Chinese state security personnel extinguished the flames and forcibly removed him from the scene. Lobsang's whereabouts and wellbeing are unknown," the group said in an emailed statement.
Reuters was unable to reach government officials in Sichuan to request comment.
The monk is the 23rd Tibetan to self-immolate in the last year. He is also the second Tibetan teenager to do so in the last three days in Aba.
China's Xinhua state news agency confirmed that a nun who set herself on fire on Saturday had died.
The self-immolations are a small but potentially destabilising challenge to China's regional policies, and the government has branded those who set themselves alight as terrorists. Activists say China violently stamps out religious freedom and culture in Tibet, the mountainous region that has been under Chinese control since 1950. China rejects criticism , saying its rule has ended serfdom and brought development to a backward region.
Protests by self-immolation have become more common in Tibet and in ethnic Tibetan regions of China and at least 15 Tibetans are believed to have died from their injuries. Exiled Tibetan leaders say they fear a crackdown in the region to coincide with the Tibetan new year on 22 February. The exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, has blamed the self-immolations on "cultural genocide" by the Chinese but he has not called for them to stop.

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