A young Tibetan monk set himself on fire in southwest China, rights groups said yesterday, the fifth reported case this year in what activists and experts say is a “rare” and “worrying” trend.
The 17-year-old from Sichuan Province’s Kirti monastery, the scene of repeated protests, shouted slogans against the Chinese government as he tried to self-immolate, the US-based International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) said.
Citing Tibetans in exile with contacts in the town of Aba, where the incident occurred on Monday, the activist group said the monk was immediately surrounded by security personnel who extinguished the flames, beat him and took him away.
The incident — confirmed by another Tibet rights group with contacts in the region — comes just one week after two other young monks set themselves on fire at Kirti in an apparent protest against perceived religious repression.
The restive Tibetan Buddhist monastery has been the scene of repeated protests, according to rights groups, and previous self-immolations in the region have triggered a crackdown.
ICT said Kelsang Wangchuk, the monk who set himself on fire on Monday, carried a photo of Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama when he mounted his protest, adding that his current condition and whereabouts were unknown.
An employee at the Aba local government said she was “unaware” of the incident and the local police and hospital were not immediately available for comment.
One local reached by telephone, who refused to be named, said he did not know about the latest self-immolation, but added there were a lot of police in Aba on Monday.
“I went out at around 3pm, but the road was blocked by police. I waited there in the rain for over an hour and then the police told us to go home,” he said.
“We were told to stay inside after that,” he added.
A man inside Kirti monastery said there were police outside the building, but refused to comment further.
Barry Sautman, an associate professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology who studies ethnic politics, said self-immolations in Tibetan regions had been a “rare” occurrence until recently.
“I don’t think that we knew of any examples until recently, at least no examples that occurred inside Tibet,” he said, referring to wider Tibetan areas.
“There was one example of a Tibetan exile who immolated himself some years back. At the time, the Dalai Lama condemned the self-immolation and said it contravened the Buddhist idea of the sanctity of life,” Sautman said.
Stephanie Brigden, director of Free Tibet — another rights group — said it was an “extremely worrying and absolutely unprecedented trend.”
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