Tibetan Buddhist monk burns himself to death in China
A Tibetan Buddhist monk burned himself to death in western China on Wednesday, triggering a street protest against government controls on the restive region, a group campaigning for Tibetan self-rule said.
A man burns a Chinese flag during a protest in Lhasa in March 2008. In March 2008, Tibetan protests led by monks in Lhasa, the regional capital of Tibet proper, were suppressed by police Photo: REUTERS
Originally published by The Telegraph,16 Mar 2011
The self-immolation appeared to be a small repeat of protests that gripped Tibetan areas of China in March 2008, when Buddhist monks and other Tibetan people loyal to the exiled Dalai Lama, their traditional religious leader, confronted police and troops.
The 21-year-old, named Phuntsog, was a monk in Aba, a mainly ethnic Tibetan part of Sichuan province that erupted in defiance against Chinese control three years ago.
The monk “immolated himself today in protest against the crackdown”, said Kate Saunders of the International Campaign for Tibet, a London-based organisation.
“He shouted some slogans about freedom when he did it,” said Zorgyi, a researcher for the organisation, who is based in northern India, where many exiled Tibetans live.
“We’ve also received widespread information about a protest with nearly one thousand monks and lay people that came after,” Zorgyi said.