An 18-year-old Tibetan died of self-immolation Monday evening in Cha Shang of Ngaba County in eastern Tibet (Chinese: Aba County, Aba Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province).
Dorjee was engulfed in flames as he marched from a bridge to a Chinese office building, says Lobsang Yeshi, spokesman for the Dharamsala-based Kirti Monastery. He shouted slogans against Chinese government before he succumbed to the flames, according to Yeshi.
Reports say local Tibetans tried to take away Dorjee's body but Chinese security personnels who arrived at the scene forcefully took away the dead body to Ngaba town.
Over the weekend, two Tibetan women set themselves on fire demanding freedom and return of the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to Tibet.
Tsering Kyi, a 19-year-old Tibetan school girl died after self-immolation Saturday. Another Tibetan woman named Rinchen, a mother of four, died after setting herself ablaze Sunday morning in Ngaba County.
The latest self-immolation comes at a sensitive time ahead of the March anniversary of 2008 Tibet-wide protests against China.
China has worsened crackdown in the Tibetan area of Ngaba following the self-immolation and death of a young Kirti monk called Phuntsog on March 16, 2011. More than sixteen Tibetans are known to have self-immolated from the Ngaba region since then.
Over 20 Tibetans have set themselves on fire in the past year to protest Beijing’s rule. The exile Tibetan leadership and rights groups have expressed fear of more self-immolations and further bloodshed in Tibet following China’s violent crackdown over peaceful protests in recent weeks in Tibet.
Heightened clampdowns and reports of arbitrary beatings and detentions in all Tibetan regions across the Tibetan plateau have been occurring for several weeks, possibly in an attempt to preempt protests as the sensitive March anniversary of the Tibetan uprisings of 2008 and 1959 approaches.
