An exiled leader of a Tibetan monastery hit by a spate of self-immolations has blamed repressive Chinese rule for the protests, but stressed he had no authority to stop them.
Kyabje Kirti Rinpoche, chief abbot of the Kirti Monastery in the predominantly ethnic Tibetan area of Aba in Sichuan, said at least 11 monks, nuns and laymen had set themselves on fire in the area since March.
Six died and the rest were taken away by the Chinese authorities and had not been heard of since.
But the respected religious figure told an online press conference hosted by Human Rights in China in New York that he was unable to call for a stop to the extreme protests.
'Because it's not us who told them to take this sort of action in the first place, I feel that we don't have the moral authority to tell them what to do and what not to do,' said the monk, who followed the Dalai Lama into exile to India in 1959.
His rhetoric echoed that of the Dalai Lama, who blamed the selfimmolations on the central government's hardline policies but similarly did not urge Tibetans to refrain from carrying out such protests.
Last week, the 25-year-old Karmapa Lama, one of the most senior religious figures in Tibetan Buddhism and a possible successor to the Dalai Lama, urged Tibetans in China to 'find other, constructive ways to work for the cause of Tibet.'