Reports: Tibetan sets himself on fire in western China
Self-immolation appears to be in protest against Beijing rule, say reports
A Tibetan man has set himself on fire in western China in what appears to be the latest such radical protest against Beijing’s rule, a US government-backed radio station and a rights monitoring group report.
The unidentified man set himself alight on a road outside the town of Machu in a traditionally Tibetan area of Gansu province at around 7pm on Thursday, Radio Free Asia and London-based Free Tibet reported.
Police arrived shortly after and took the man away and there was no immediate word on his condition, the reports said.
A man who answered the phone at a regional police station hung up immediately after the caller asked for information. Calls to other government offices rang unanswered.
While information from the isolated area is incomplete, the incident is believed to bring to at least 146 the number of Tibetans who have self-immolated in recent years, about 125 of whom have died, according to monitoring groups.
Eyewitnesses have been quoted as saying that many of those who self-immolated cried out for Tibetan independence or prayed for the return of the Dalai Lama. Tibet’s Buddhist leader fled Tibet in 1959 amid an abortive uprising against government forces.
While Beijing says Tibet has been part of China for more than seven centuries, some Tibetans say they were essentially independent for most of that time.
Thursday’s self-immolation was the first known to have occurred since either March or May.
The protests are seen as an extreme expression of the anger and frustration felt by many Tibetans – both laypeople and members of the Buddhist clergy – living under the heavy-handed rule of Beijing.
In a new book on such self-immolations, Tibetan writer and rights activist Tsering Woeser describes them as forming a “broad protest movement that continues to this day”.
“Because no other method is available for Tibetans to voice their protests, and because only the horror of self-immolation is able to capture the attention of the world, it has become the choice of the bravest protesters in Tibet,” Woeser wrote in Tibet on Fire: Self-Immolations Against Chinese Rule.
The Dalai Lama, who Beijing accuses of seeking independence for Tibet, generally avoids making comments about the self-immolations. But in 2012, he told The Hindu newspaper: “The reality is that if I say something positive, then the Chinese immediately blame me. If I say something negative, then the family members of those people feel very sad.”
