Thursday, October 27, 2011

Tensions Rise In Tibet As Tenth Monk Sets Himself On Fire

A Tibetan Buddhist monk has set himself ablaze in western China, the tenth reported ethnic Tibetan this year to resort to the extreme form of protest.

Free Tibet, a UK-based advocacy group, said that the latest self-immolation took place outside a monastery in Ganzi in Sichuan province. The city is about 150km south of Aba, the site where eight of the last nine self-immolations happened since March in protest against religious controls imposed by the Chinese government.

Most people in Ganzi and neighbouring Aba are ethnic Tibetan herders and farmers, and many see themselves as members of a wider Tibetan region encompassing the official Tibetan Autonomous Region and other areas across the vast highlands of China's west. China has ruled Tibet Autonomous Region since Communist troops marched into Tibet in 1950.

The series of self-immolations, at least five of them fatal, "represents a wider rejection of China's occupation of Tibet", Stephanie Brigden, the director of Free Tibet, said.

Chinese government rejected the criticisms of rights groups and exiled Tibetans and has condemned the self-immolations as destructive and immoral.

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