Two Tibetans Self-Immolate
2012-08-27
Fifty-one Tibetans have now set themselves ablaze to protest Chinese rule.
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/tibet/summoned-08152012132739.html/tibet-kirti-outside-305.gif
Two young Tibetan men set themselves on fire near a restive monastery in China’s Sichuan province and died Monday in protest against Chinese rule in Tibetan areas, Tibetan sources in exile said. Monks at the entrance to the Kirti monastary, Oct. 17, 2011.
Their self-immolation came two days after a nun in a neighboring prefecture braved tight security restriction and staged a solitary protest, also challenging Beijing’s rule, before she was detained and taken away.
Lobsang Kalsang, 18 and a monk at Kirti monastery, and Damchoe, 17 and an ex-monk, self-immolated at a site near the eastern gate of Kirti monastery and close to Heroes’ Street in Ngaba, the sources said, referring to a main road in Ngaba town which has become the epicenter of burning protests challenging Chinese rule.
As they burned, both shouted slogans condemning Chinese policies in Tibet, India-based monks Kanyag Tsering and Lobsang Yeshe said, citing contacts in the region.
“Witnesses saw them run about 20 steps with their bodies on fire, and then they fell to the ground,” they said, adding that sounds of “Ki! Ki!,” a Tibetan battle cry, could later be heard coming from the flames.
Police took both men to Ngaba hospital, and then to a hospital in nearby Barkham county, “but later in the evening, both men died, and their bodies are still in the possession of the authorities,” Tsering and Yeshe said.
