[Free Tibet said that Mr. Kalsang had called for “Tibet’s complete independence” while self-immolating. Passers-by doused him with water, the group said; he was taken to a county hospital and later to one in Chengdu, the provincial capital, but died en route. Radio Free Asia, a news service funded by the United States government, also reported Mr. Kalsang’s death.]
By Edward Young
 |
Exiled Tibetans in
support of
two Tibetans who were said to have self-immolated in
protest of Chinese rule. Credit Ashwini Bhatia/Associated Press.
|
group. It was the first known act of self-immolation in a Tibetan area of China since August.
The
monk, Kalsang Wangdu, 18, set fire to himself on Monday, according to Free
Tibet, a group based in London. On the same day, a 16-year-old Tibetan student,
Dorjee Tsering, did so in the Indian city of Dehradun while shouting “Free
Tibet,” the group said. He survived and was in a hospital in New Delhi.
On
Tuesday, a professor at Duke University posted on Twitter a photograph of Hillary
Clinton, the Democratic presidential candidate,holding
up a black-and-white photo of a young Tibetan said to be Mr.
Dorjee.
More than 140 Tibetans have self-immolated in protest in Tibetan regions of China Ngaba County Beijing
Mr. Kalsang set himself on fire at 4 p.m. outside his
monastery, Retsokha Aryaling, in what the Tibetans call Kardze Prefecture,
according to Free Tibet. Kardze, whose Chinese name is Ganzi, has been a
prominent site of protests against the Chinese authorities.
Free Tibet said that Mr. Kalsang had called for “Tibet’s
complete independence” while self-immolating. Passers-by doused him with water,
the group said; he was taken to a county hospital and later to one in Chengdu,
the provincial capital, but died en route. Radio Free Asia, a news service
funded by the United States government, also reported Mr.
Kalsang’s death.
Free Tibet also said that a Tibetan woman, Mang Gha, 33,
was detained on Tuesday after walking through a town in Ngaba Prefecture, which
includes Ngaba County, holding up a portrait of the Dalai
Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader who fled to India in 1959.
Chinese officials have deemed it illegal to display images of the Dalai Lama,
who it accuses of fomenting plots against China, anywhere in the nation.
The Dalai Lama’s escape to India in 1959 took place
during an uprising that began in March, and each year, the Chinese government
fears protests in Tibetan areas as the uprising’s anniversary approaches. In
March 2008, widespread demonstrations that unfolded across the Tibetan Plateau
struck fear into the Communist Party’s top leaders, who deployed paramilitary
troops to suppress
the unrest.
Last month, the authorities began barring foreign
tourists from going to central Tibet, known as the Tibet Autonomous Region,
according to an advocacy group based in Washington, the International Campaign
for Tibet. The shutdown is expected to last until the end of March.
Also last month, a court in Xining, the capital of
Qinghai Province, sentenced a popular Tibetan blogger, Druklo, to three years
in prison after he had been detained for a year, according to the International
Campaign for Tibet. The blogger, who writes under the pseudonym Shokjang, has
advocated true Tibetan autonomy within China, the same position that the Dalai
Lama takes.
Tibetans last month celebrated their new year, Losar,
another time when the Chinese authorities are on the watch for protests.
On Thursday, Yu Zhengsheng, a top Communist Party
official who is the chairman of a legislative advisory committee, addressed the
issue of China’s ethnic policies at the opening session of the committee’s
annual meeting in Beijing. “We promoted ethnic unity and religious harmony to
bring together the will and strength of the people,” he said, according to
China Central Television, the state network.
Follow Edward Wong on Twitter @comradewong.
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