The exile seat of the Kirti Monastery in Dharamshala identified the two monks as Lobsang Dawa, 20 and Kunchok Woeser, 22.

“The two monks set themselves on fire at 6:40 pm (local time) near the right side of the main prayer hall of the Taktsang Lhamo Monastery protesting China’s repressive policies,” the Kirti Monastery release said. “Both of them passed away at the site of the protest.”

According to reports, the body of the two monks were later taken to their respective monastic quarters where fellow monks carried out prayers.

“Local Chinese authorities have issued orders for the cremation of the two monks by early tomorrow morning,” the release said.

A woman was also reported to have set herself on fire in another part of Sichuan, though few details are available. From Radio Free Asia:

Also on Wednesday, at about 2:00 p.m., a 23–year-old Tibetan woman set herself on fire and died in a protest against Chinese rule in Sichuan’s Dzamthang (Rangtang) county, Tibetan sources said.

The woman’s name and other details of her protest are still unknown.

Well-known Tibetan poet and blogger Woeser confirmed the woman’s protest, describing her in a blog entry as a “shepherdess.”

Last week, a 20-year-old mother self-immolated in Sichuan. Since 2009, more than 100 Tibetans have set themselves on fire to protest Beijing’s policies in the region.

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The monk set himself on fire Saturday inside his room in Kirti monastery in Sichuan province’s mountainous Aba county, RFA said. Carrying a Tibetan Buddhist prayer flag, he ran toward the monastery entrance before collapsing and was rushed to hospital where he died, the report said.

A man who answered the phone at Kirti said the monastery was open to the public, but hung up when questioned about the self-immolation report. Calls to local government and police offices rang unanswered.

The London-based advocacy group Free Tibet also reported Lobsang Thokmey’s self-immolation. It said a large force of security personnel at the county hospital had removed his body.

Confirming claims long circulating among Tibetan activists, the official Global Times newspaper last week said that family members of those who self-immolate were barred from retrieving their relatives’ bodies, while neighbors were not allowed to offer condolences and monks were barred from offering prayers for the dead.

Phayul provides more details on the monk’s self-immolation:

According to the Dharamshala based Kirti Monastery, Lobsang Thokmey doused his body with kerosene in front of his monastic quarters in the west of the Kirti Monastery and started running towards the east.

“Lobsang Thokmey was in flames as he began running with the Buddhist flag in his hands,” the Kirti Monastery said in a release. “Before he could reach the main gate, he fell on the ground.”

“A large number of Chinese security personnel arrived at the hospital soon after Lobsang Thokmey was admitted and later forcibly took away the deceased’s body to the regional headquarters of Barkham,” the same source said.

It is not yet known what slogans Lobsang Thokmey raised during his self-immolation protest.

Lobsang Thokmey is the 108^th Tibetan to set himself ablaze since the beginning of the protests that began in February 2009. In the 109th case, a Tibetan woman has also self-immolated in Sichuan province’s Ngaba prefecture. These incidents come amid the continuing crackdown in Tibet. From Radio Free Asia:

Kunchok Wangmo, 31, set herself ablaze in Dzoege (Ruo’ergai) county just before midnight last Wednesday but news of the burning was hushed up by Chinese police who had grabbed her body, cremated it and handed over the remains to her family, the sources said.

Her husband, Dolma Kyab, was detained when he refused to comply with an order by the Chinese authorities who wanted to blame the self-immolation on a family squabble, one exiled Tibetan with contacts in the region told RFA’s Tibetan Service.

Kunchok Wangmo is the 15th woman to self-immolate since the burnings began in February 2009 aimed at challenging Chinese rule in Tibetan areas and calling for the return of Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who lives in exile in India.

The main road in Ngaba was declared last year as “Heroes Street” after it became the epicenter of the burnings.

See also Flames of Protest: The History of Self-Immolation, via CDT.

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Tsezung Kyab, 27, torched himself in front of the main prayer hall of the Shitsang Monastery in Luchu region of eastern Tibet at around 1:30 pm (local time). He passed away at his protest site, the same place where his cousin Pema Dorjee, 23, passed away in his self-immolation protest on December 8, 2012.

[…] This is the second self-immolation protest in Tibet in as many days. [On Sunday], Phagmo Dhondup, a Tibetan in his 20’s set himself ablaze near the Jhakhyung Monastery in Palung region of eastern Tibet. His condition and whereabouts are not known.

On Tuesday, news emerged of another case on Monday, in Ngaba. From Phayul:

Sangdag, a monk of the Dhiphu Monastery, set himself ablaze on a main road in Ngaba district at around 10 am (local time).

According to the exile base of Kirti Monastery in Dharamshala, Sangdag’s present condition is unknown.

“Soon after Sangdag carried out his fiery protest, Chinese security personnel arrived at the scene and doused the flames on his body,” Kirti Monastery said in a release today. “He was taken a hospital in Ngaba but shortly after that the Chinese police bundled him away to another place.”

These protests brought the total number of Tibetan self-immolations within China to 107 since the start of 2009. Six other cases have occurred in India and Nepal, while two further incidents in Sichuan province are disputed on the grounds that they may have been accidental. The International Campaign for Tibet publishes perhaps the clearest and most comprehensive list of Tibetan self-immolations, though at time of writing it has not yet been updated to include Sangdag’s.

Another report from Phayul last week illustrated the risks faced by anyone suspected of sharing information about the protests. A 20-year-old Tibetan man was reportedly sentenced to two years in prison after two photographs of self-immolations were found on his phone, along with other images:

“He was apprehended by Chinese security personnel during a routine check near the city mosque,” the release cited a Tibetan source as saying. “Upon checking his mobile phone, the Chinese police found two photos of self-immolation protests, images of Tibetan national flag, and other photos showing Chinese atrocities on Tibetans.”

The release added that he was kept in various prisons for over a week during which he was constantly interrogated. Topden was later sentenced to two years in prison on charges of being a “reactionary, inciting the public, and threatening social stability.” He is currently being kept in a prison in Toelung region.

[…] In December last, four Tibetans were arrested in Rebkong region of eastern Tibet on similar charges of storing “reactionary” materials in the phone after they were found keeping photos of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in their phones.

This is just the latest in a string of sentences passed on people accused of involvement in the protests. The crackdown is also said to have included confiscation of TV equipment, restrictions on travel, withdrawal of government benefits from families of self-immolators, and beatings and arrests.

Over the longer term, China has attempted to secure its rule over Tibetan areas with economic development. Xinhua’s China View reported the official removal of 130,000 people from poverty in the Tibetan Autonomous Region last year, pointing to long-distance trucking as a key driver of prosperity:

At The New York Times’ Latitude blog, Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore acknowledged that Tibet has seen some material gains. But the settlement of nomadic herders has been a core policy to “raise living standards”, and this, she writes, has left many with government stipends and alcohol in place of traditional livelihoods and communities.

The Chinese government has […] undermined Tibetan nomads’ claim to land by ordering the fencing of private pastures and resettling populations, often forcibly. Since that campaign started in the 1990s — accelerating over the last decade — more than one million Tibetan herders across the Tibetan Autonomous Region and Tibetan-populated regions of western China have been resettled. According to the state-run China Daily, the government spent almost $550 million from 2009 to 2012 on the resettlement of Tibetan nomads in Qinghai.

Herders have traded their livestock and their lifestyle for a small annual stipend. They often relocate to compounds in town — like the colorful ones I saw — where local officials can monitor their activities more easily. “People who live in these houses look at it like a jail,” one young Tibetan told me. “The community is gone.”

What’s left of it is being turned into a social underclass. Many older Tibetan nomads are illiterate, and aside from irregular construction work there is little they can find to support themselves once their stipend runs out. Those who cannot speak Chinese complain of being treated with contempt; they say shopkeepers of ethnic Han origin order them not to touch produce.

NPR’s Talk of the Nation (via CDT) recently hosted a discussion of past and present self-immolations with Columbia University’s Robert Barnett, Oxford University’s Michael Biggs and the International Campaign for Tibet’s Bhuchung Tsering. A blog post translated at High Peaks Pure Earth, on the other hand, offers a glimpse of the ongoing debate on the Tibetan web. Its author, Naktsang Nulo, dismisses the accusation that any but the youngest and most impressionable self-immolators could have been fooled into committing such an act, but implores others not to follow their lead and urges the Dalai Lama to issue a similar appeal.

What I want to state and request again and again from my heart and mind with deep sadness is that no matter what savage and brutal rule you may have to endure, please do not resort to self-immolation. You may come up with any other methods of resistance and struggle, but please do not set yourself on fire. I want to request again that no matter how pure your aims and hopes are, please do not resort to self-immolation.

[…] There are many ways to fight for freedom, to fulfill one’s aspirations and to struggle against the government. At a time when there is a so-called good leadership of the Communist Party, good governance from the administration, good economic development and good livelihood for the people, it seems that an individual, a group of people or a nationality can demand rights from the government, regional authorities or even the Communist Party by submitting appeals and through legal channels. It appears that one may not necessarily have to resort to self-immolation. Perhaps these are just the words of someone like me who does not know much. But what I want to request again is that no matter what savage and brutal rule you may have to endure, please do not set yourself on fire. Whatever methods of struggle and resistance one must adopt, do not resort to self-immolation. No matter how pure and incomparable your hopes and faiths are please do not set yourself on fire. I particularly want to request our root guru, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, to pray for the sea of suffering in Tibet and kindly make a statement to ask the brave Tibetans not to self-immolate.

In an iSunAffairs Weekly article translated and republished at Phayul, New York-based political science professor Ming Xia examined the question of whether such a call would be effective or desirable. Xia’s primary focus, however, was the lack of support for Tibetans among Han intellectuals in China, which Andrew Jacobs also examined at The New York Times in November. The two groups face shared obstacles, Xia argued, but many Chinese fail to recognize this because of state propaganda or revulsion at the act of self-immolation viewed from a non-Buddhist perspective.

First as intellectuals living in the free world, we must be aware of the fact that the Chinese intellectuals and Tibetans are victims of the same authoritarian rule and that they are both facing a profound identity crisis. It raises a fundamental question for Tibetans, which is whether Tibetans would continue to be Tibetans if there were no Buddhism. And as for the Chinese intellectuals, the question is whether they would still be “intellectuals” if they do not have the right to free and independent thinking and the right to pursue truth. Since the two challenges are closely interlinked, it is therefore incumbent upon the Chinese intellectuals to pay close attention and support the demand of the Tibetan people.

[…] No doubt, resorting to self-immolation is not a good option. Tibetans today, however, do not have the luxury to choose between “good” and “bad”. Tibetans can only chose between “bad” and “worse.” Losing their religious faith is worse than self-immolation for Tibetans. The Chinese Communist regime wantonly insult the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, ban his portrait to be hung in the temples, expel the monks devoted to the Dalai Lama from their monasteries, establish “Temple Management Authority” and “Work Units” in the monasteries, and send millions of copies of the so-called “four leaders” (Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, and Hu Jintao) to the temples. All of this represents a serious threat to the religious freedom of the Tibetan people.

[This post was edited to remove a link to an outdated NPR story.]

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Two Tibetan teenagers set themselves on fire in Kyangtsa region of Zoege, eastern Tibet on February 19, protesting China’s continued occupation and repressive policies in Tibet.

Rinchen, 17 and Sonam Dhargey, 18 have succumbed to their burns.

[… Kirti Monastery said in a release that] “The families of the two teenagers are in possession of their bodies and are hoping to carry out their final rites without any interference from the Chinese authorities.”

The 102nd self-immolation is said to have occurred on Sunday. From Phayul.com:

Namlha Tsering, 49, carried out his fiery protest at around 5:40 pm (local time) in Sangchu region of Labrang. His current condition is not known although sources say chances of his survival are minimal.

Photos received by Phayul show Namlha Tsering sitting cross-legged in the middle of a street even as high flames are rising from his body. In another photo he is seen fallen on his back with fire still leaping from his body.

[…] Chinese security personnel arrived at the scene of the protest, doused the flames and bundled him away.

The 101st reportedly took place on the same symbolic date on which the hundredth was revealed after a 10-day delay. Another Tibetan also set fire to himself that day in Kathmandu, Nepal, and later died. From Phayul.com:

A Tibetan father of three set himself on fire in Amchok region of eastern Tibet on February 13, a day observed by Tibetans as the centenary celebrations of His Holiness the 13th Dalai Lama’s Proclamation of Tibetan Independence.

Drugpa Khar, 26, set himself on fire in Amchok town in Sangchu region of Kanlho at around 1 pm (local time). He reportedly succumbed to his injuries.

[…] According to exile sources, Drugpa Khar is survived by his parents Tamding Tsering and Tamding Tso. His youngest child is one year old and the eldest is aged six.

At least six other self-immolations have taken place beside these 104, including two in Nepal and four in India. Another two possible cases within China’s borders are disputed on the grounds that they may have been accidental. Joshua Eaton has examined these and other reasons for discrepancies.

On NPR’s Talk of the Nation on Wednesday, Oxford University’s Michael Biggs, Columbia University’s Robert Barnett and the International Campaign for Tibet’s Bhuchung Tsering discussed the protests with host Neal Conan. Their conversation covers the history and potency of self-immolation protests globally, and their causes and effects within Tibet. Asked whether suicide bombings might replace suicide protests, Biggs argued that these are fundamentally different phenomena rather than points on the same spectrum. Bhuchung Tsering, though, suggested that goading Tibetans into just such an escalation may be one of the Chinese authorities’ aims, as it could be used to justify an even harsher crackdown. Perhaps the key question, however, is whether the protests might be having more of an effect than meets the eye.

CONAN: Let me turn back to Robert Barnet. Bhuchung Tsering just said that he thinks behind the scenes the Chinese government is debating this issue. Is there any evidence of that?

BARNETT: Well, I do have some evidence of that, actually. (Unintelligible) internal, you know, but we have sources, and they have been – you know, people have been sent to tell us about this. And I think it’s probably true. I think there’s been a major change in the Chinese view that whether these things are really caused by the Dalai Lama and the exiles, I think they now recognize they are caused by these mishandled, grossly mishandled religious policies and a whole raft of other policies over many years.

But the problem is not whether that change has happened. I think Bhuchung’s right. But I think the problem is whether the new leadership in China is able to push forward any change. It faces a very resistant bureaucracy. It faces a whole industry of people in security forces, in various offices, in local governments, whose whole careers depend on having a security threat, that they’re the hard men who are sent there to control it, and they’re going to go on pushing very hard for a tough policy.

[… O]ne of the questions is we don’t really know whether the new leadership is running these things yet. A lot of decisions are made at the local level. Some decisions are made by incumbents who are still there from the previous leadership. It doesn’t, as you say, fully change until March. We don’t yet know when this leadership can step forward and stamp its new ideas on the situation. Maybe it doesn’t have any new ideas. Maybe it’s going to be very careful. They can’t bring them in for another couple of years. I think all the bets are off on this. China is a black box in terms of leadership thinking.

At The Wall Street Journal, Brian Spegele and Deborah Kan also discussed the protests and the resulting crackdown:

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According to the exile base of the Kirti Monastery in Dharamshala, Lobsang Namgyal set himself ablaze near the local police building in Zoege at around 6 am (local time). He passed away at the scene of his protest.

“Lobsang Namgyal, engulfed in flames, shouted slogans for the long life of His Holiness the Dalai Lama as he ran towards the local police building,” Kirti Monastery said in a release citing sources in the region.

[…] “Chinese security personnel bundled away his body from the site and carried out his cremation without informing his family members,” Kirti Monastery said. “Only his ashes were handed over.”

In September 2012, Lobsang Namgyal had all of a sudden gone missing for two weeks prompting frantic searches from his family members and friends. It was later found out that he was taken into custody by Chinese security personnel for unknown reasons.

Coincidentally or otherwise, news of this 100th self-immolation emerged on the 100th anniversary of the Dalai Lama’s Tibetan Proclamation of Independence, after a ten-day delay. The organization Free Tibet reported that fear of reprisals from Chinese authorities had slowed confirmation of the event, and that Lobsang Namgyal’s family members have been followed and subjected to phone tapping or detention since his death. Authorities have detained dozens of Tibetans accused of involvement in earlier protests, while others have already received lengthy prison sentences. Other measures include travel restrictions and the confiscation of televisions and satellite dishes, aimed at controlling the flow of information: the delayed news of Lobsang Namgyal’s death, and reports that a Tibetan woman set fire to herself in Beijing in a previously unknown case as long ago as last September, suggest some success in this.

The protests and crackdown have dampened celebrations of Losar, the Tibetan lunar new year, which Tibetan prime-minister-in-exile Lobsang Sangay suggested should be marked by prayer instead of festivities. From Ben Blanchard at Reuters:

The Tibetan lunar new year is supposed to be a time for celebration, but many Tibetans who spoke to Reuters in Xiahe said there would be no entertainment this year.

“It really isn’t appropriate because of the self-immolations. So we’re not marking the new year,” said a Tibetan man who gave his name as Dorje. “In Tibet you don’t celebrate new year if you are in mourning.”

[…] Tibetan areas in China have been largely closed to foreign reporters and put under heavy security, making an independent assessment of the situation there hard.

Many of the monks said they were too scared to talk publicly about the Tibet issue. “I’m terrified. People have no idea how bad things are here,” said one monk.

The Associated Press described the self-immolation in Kathmandu on Wednesday:

Witnesses in Nepal said a man in monk’s robes entered a cafe in Katmandu’s Boudhanath district–home to many Tibetan Buddhist temples and monasteries–and asked to use the bathroom. After spending some time there, he went into the street and lit himself on fire. He ran a few steps, covered in flames and chanting slogans against China, before collapsing in front of the mammoth Boudhanath stupa, one of the holiest Buddhist sites in the country, surrounded by prayer wheels and decorated with colorful streams of flitting prayer flags.

Police official Keshav Adhikari said police and residents were able to put out the flames and rush the man to a hospital. Dozens of baton-wielding police surrounded the hospital where the man lay in critical condition. Adhikari said the man had yet to be identified, but appeared to be about 21 years old.

[…] Prasant Tamang, a waiter at the Golden Eye Cafe, said he found a gasoline bottle, a jacket and a bag in the cafe’s bathroom. Tamang said the man appeared normal and calm.

Some 20,000 Tibetan exiles live in Nepal, but some say they feel “suffocated” by growing Chinese influence. Local authorities have forbidden protests against China, and in February last year border guards reportedly turned a blind eye to plain-clothed Chinese men obstructing a CNN crew filming on the Nepalese side.

The Kathmandu protest has also been described as the 100th self-immolation, but officials from the Central Tibetan Administration told the AP that it was the 101st worldwide since 2009. This figure appears not to include Lobsang Namgyal. The International Campaign for Tibet counts five previous cases outside China’s borders since April 2008, including one earlier incident in the same part of Kathmandu. Two more possible cases within Tibet are excluded from both organizations’ tallies because accidental death could not be definitively ruled out.

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Lorang Konchok, 40, was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve and has been stripped of his political rights for life. His nephew, Lorang Tsering, 31, was sentenced to 10 years in prison and has been stripped of his political rights for three years, according to the court verdict.

The two incited and coerced eight people to self-immolate, resulting in three deaths, the Intermediate People’s Court of the Tibetan-Qiang Autonomous Prefecture of Aba found.

[…] Lorang Konchok used his status as a “geshe,” or a high-level Tibetan religious scholar, to convince monks and others to self-immolate, the court found.

Lorang Konchok sent information regarding self-immolations to Samtan ["a member of an overseas 'Kirti Monastery media liaison team'"]. The information was used by some overseas media as a basis for creating secessionist propaganda, according to the court.

Death with a two-year reprieve is generally commuted to life or fixed-term imprisonment at the end of the two years. According to Xinhua, this reduced sentence was given because Lorang Konchok had “recounted the main facts of the case, pled guilty and showed repentance during the trial”. His accounts have been used in state media to accuse overseas organizations and “the Dalai clique” of involvement in the protests.

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The group said 18-year-old monk Lobsang Kalsang and 17-year-old former monk Damchoek set themselves on fire on Monday outside Kirti monastery in Aba county in the south-west Chinese province of Sichuan. They died later that day in hospital, Free Tibet said.

Citing witnesses, Free Radio Asia said the two teenagers shouted slogans condemning Chinese policies in Tibet.

Police in Aba county said on Tuesday they had no information on the self-immolations, which are rarely reported by Chinese state media. There have been at least 27 self-immolations in Aba, according to an earlier tally by the International Campaign for Tibet.

Supporters say the self-immolations are done in protest against Beijing’s heavy-handed rule in Tibetan regions and to call for the return of the Dalai Lama. China has blamed the Tibetans’ exiled spiritual leader for inciting the deaths, but the Dalai Lama denies the claim. He has never publicly supported or denounced the acts.

Read about the previous self-immolations by Tibetans, via CDT.

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The student set herself ablaze Saturday at a vegetable market in Gansu province’s Maqu county and died at the scene, the report said, without giving the girl’s name or age.

Chinese market vendors threw stones at the girl’s burning body, the broadcaster said, citing an unidentified Tibetan exile with connections to the community in Maqu. It didn’t say why they attacked her.

The girl was described as a middle school student, but it was unclear whether she was in regular middle school, where students range from 13 to 16 years old, or senior middle school, where students can be up to 19. Calls to local Maqu schools rang unanswered.

On Sunday, a woman identified only as Rinchen set herself on fire in front of a police station by the main gate to the Kirti Monastery in Aba prefecture in Sichuan province. Radio Free Asia said she was a mother of three young children. A report Sunday by the London-based Free Tibet group said Rinchen had four children.

Read more about recent self-immolations in Tibetan regions, including a discussion of whether self-immolation can be considered a Buddhist act.

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The party chief, Liu Qibao, made a trip to the prefectures of Aba and Ganzi, where Tibetan clergy have been engaging in self-immolations to protest Chinese policies and ordinary people have taken to the streets to rally against the authorities. Mr. Liu met with security officers and also visited Kirti Monastery in the town of Aba, called Ngaba in Tibetan, where many of the self-immolations have taken place.

“Everyone is equal before the law. No matter whether you are a monk or a nun, you are a citizen first,” Mr. Liu said, according to a translation of passages in the Sichuan Daily article by The Associated Press. “There are no monasteries outside the law, nor are there individuals outside the law.”

Meanwhile, access to the area is tightly restricted for others. Foreign journalists have entered the region undercover and at great risk to themselves and their Tibetan contacts, as Louisa Lim reports for NPR (Listen to her report):

Visiting Tibetan areas nowadays is a risky venture. There is nothing in the Chinese regulations explicitly forbidding journalists, but the unspoken dangers deter many. One colleague told me it wasn’t worth bothering; the monasteries are full of spies, he said, you won’t get anything anyway.

Many have tried, nonetheless, hiding in the back of vans, under piles of clothes, in questionable disguises. If you do get caught, you might get detained and questioned, but eventually you’ll get sent home. At worst, you might get beaten up. The dangers are far worse for those who help us and talk to us.

In 2008, Jigme Gyatso, a Tibetan Buddhist monk from Labrang monastery in Gansu province, recorded a video telling how, after a protest at Labrang, he was arrested, held for 42 days and tortured. His testimony was later broadcast on Voice of America.

He’s been detained multiple times and is currently being held incommunicado. He has been charged with taking part in activities aimed at splitting China. It’s unclear what part, if any, the 2008 video played in that charge.

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It appeared that at least two people had been hit by gunfire, and one of those might have been killed, said Kate Saunders, a spokeswoman for International Campaign for Tibet, which is based in Washington. Ms. Saunders said the group had spoken to at least two sources.

Another group, Free Tibet, said it had confirmed reports that a Tibetan woman was shot. There were unconfirmed reports that many others were also hit, said Stephanie Brigden, the director of the group, which is based in London. Security officials in the area could not be reached for comment on Saturday night.

The violence took place in the town of Aba, known in Tibetan as Ngaba, a focal point for protests against Chinese rule and the scene of civilian deaths during a widespread Tibetan uprising in 2008. Since then, it has been the site of at least 11 self-immolations, some of them fatal. Those setting themselves on fire have mainly been monks, nuns or former members of the clergy. The monks in Aba who set themselves on fire all come from the Kirti Monastery, where anger has grown over Chinese repression of religious practices.

The self-immolation on Saturday was the 16th since March 2011, when Phuntsog, a monk at Kirti, set himself on fire and died. The wave of self-immolations in the past year was preceded by that of one monk from Kirti in the spring of 2009. In total, at least 12 Tibetans have died through self-immolation since 2009, if the death on Saturday is confirmed. Scholars of modern Tibet say the self-immolations represent a new and disturbing protest strategy among the clergy.

AP has more in the incident:

Woeser, a Beijing-based Tibetan poet and activist, posted accounts of the unrest on Twitter that were similar to those reported by the groups.

“A young Tibetan person self-immolated … the local area has erupted in public protests and marches, and they have been met with military police fire and suppression. There are Tibetan casualties,” she wrote. Like some Tibetans, Woeser uses just one name.

The claims could not be independently confirmed. Calls to Aba county’s police bureau rang unanswered. A man who answered the phone Sunday at the Aba prefecture government said they hadn’t received any reports about a self-immolation or clashes and then hung up. People answering the phones at the lower Aba county and township governments also said they had no information.

Heavy security has turned Aba and the surrounding area into a virtual restricted zone since an anti-government uprising across Tibetan communities in 2008, and foreign reporters have had little or no access.

Read more about Kirti Monastery and self-immolation by Tibetans, as well as other recent protests in Tibet and Tibetan regions, via CDT.

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Chinese state media confirmed the incidents occurred in the traditionally Tibetan region of Sichuan.

London-based Free Tibet group said the men were protesting over Chinese rule.

A 22-year-old former monk was taken to hospital with serious burns after setting himself alight at a crossroads in Sichuan’s Aba prefecture, China’s Xinhua news agency said.

Another former monk died after burning himself to death in a hotel around the same time, Xinhua said.

AP has more details about the incident and its aftermath:

U.S. broadcaster Radio Free Asia said hundreds of angry Tibetans forced police to hand over the remains of the 42-year-old monk, named Sopa, then carried them through the streets in Dari county in Qinghai province.

It said the monk died Sunday morning after drinking and throwing kerosene over his body. Radio Free Asia quote a source as saying Sopa’s “body exploded in pieces” before police took it away.

Two other men set themselves on fire Friday in Sichuan province. At least 15 monks, nuns and former monks are now believed to have set themselves on fire in the past year. Most have chanted for Tibetan freedom and the return of their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who fled to India amid an abortive uprising against Chinese rule in 1959.

Radio Free Asia said police first refused to give up the body but relented after “the protesters smashed windows and doors of the local police station,” according to another source.

The Dalai Lama has blamed recent self-immolations on China’s policies toward Tibet, but researchers at the Sichuan Tibetology Research Center have claimed that the Dalai Lama enticed these men to commit the self-immolations. China Daily adds:

“The several self-immolation cases recently were committed by people who previously had got punished for their wrongdoings such as whoring, gambling and burglary, or deep in debt because of gambling,” said Gang Zheng, a Tibetology expert with the Sichuan Tibetology Research Center.

The Dalai Lama was trying to make this serve his political purposes, said Yi Fei, another Tibetology expert with the center.

The two most recent self-immolations were both former monks who had resumed a secular life. According to state media, these two former monks had been accused of being involved in the theft of a Buddha statue in Kirti Monastery. The Times of India reports:

The official media quoted a government-run think-tank as saying those indulging in self-immolation were former monks, who had been found to be involved in several cases of wrongdoing including stealing and whoring. The dead monk had stolen the statue of Buddha at the Kirti Monastery, it said.

This is a new form of accusation against monks, who had earlier been accused of anti-national and anti-social activities.

Investigations by local officials showed that the former monks, as the State-run Xinhua News Agency described them, had clashed with local authorities in recent months. It did not explain why they has lost their status as monks, but it is possible that pro-government forces in the Kirti Monastery in Aba Country, had removed them for anti-government behavior.
 

The Wall Street Journal looks at the epidemic of self-immolations and revisits the monasteries where a nun and a monk both set themselves on fire last year:

On Sunday, a separate Xinhua article, which made no mention of the self-immolations, said that senior Tibet officials pledged stepped-up efforts to strengthen the management of monasteries, saying that promoting harmony in Tibet is a priority because it concerns the stability of the nation.

In one incident in November, Palden Choetso, a 35-year-old nun at the Gaden Choeling nunnery, doused herself in gasoline, gulped several mouthfuls, and set herself ablaze, according to accounts by her fellow nuns.

Shortly afterward, friends of the Tibetan nun found a list of names pinned above her bed in the small wooden hut where she lived. Ms. Palden was compiling a tally of Tibetans who had set themselves on fire, all in the same corner of western Sichuan, in protest of China’s policies in the region—adjacent to the Tibet Autonomous Region and heavily populated by ethnic Tibetans. Among the names was Tsewang Norbu, 29, a monk at the local Nyitso monastery.

In Daofu, where Ms. Palden and Mr. Tsewang self-immolated, they have become martyrs to some. Their photographs are displayed in the town’s homes. A video circulating on the Internet shows Ms. Palden’s body engulfed in flames; as she struggles to stay upright, a woman runs toward her and casts a white scarf at her feet in a gesture of respect.

UPDATE (Jan. 9, 4:15 PST): The New York Times has more details about the weekend’s self-immolations:

Analysts who sympathize with ethnic Tibetans’ criticism of Beijing’s conduct say this month’s deaths underscore that the crackdown has failed to quell Tibetans’ demands for greater religious and political latitude. While most suicide victims were young monks, Sopa, who self-immolated on Sunday morning in Qinghai Province, was a 42-year-old senior clergyman. Like many Tibetans, he went by one name.

His death indicates that suicide is increasingly accepted as an expression of political opposition among Tibetans and that the government’s harsh response has only made it more popular, Nicholas Bequelin, a senior researcher in Hong Kong for Human Rights Watch, said in a telephone interview.

“We clearly see this form of protest is resonating within the Tibetan community,” he said. “The government is trying to prevent these incidents by strengthening control, but too much repression and control is what provokes these acts. So it is a vicious circle.”

Read more about the recent self-immolations via CDT.

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Officials have reason to be fearful. For Tibetans, self-immolation is a new form of protest. Such acts are difficult for the authorities to prevent, and images of them can have a powerful psychological effect among sympathisers. Eleven Tibetans have tried to kill themselves this way since March. Six have succeeded, the latest a 35-year-old nun in Ganzi on November 3rd.

On October 19th Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, held a prayer ceremony for the dead in Dharamsala, the Indian town where he now lives in exile. China’s foreign ministry accused him of inciting “terrorism in disguise”. Fire extinguishers have become the accoutrement of choice for police patrols (see picture) as far away as Lhasa, the Tibetan capital some 1,200km south-west of Songpan.

The anger and desperation that has prompted Tibetans to set fire to themselves is common across the plateau. In all of China’s Tibetan-inhabited areas, the authorities have rounded up innumerable monks, nuns and laypeople for taking part in the 2008 unrest. Reports of torture are rife. Many monks have been forced to denounce the Dalai Lama, who even in Songpan, where things are relatively calm, is deeply revered by Tibetans. This correspondent was often asked for news of him. “You can’t call yourself a monk unless you support the Dalai Lama”, says a Songpan resident.

But Aba and Ganzi share an additional layer of resentment. Both prefectures saw the only well-documented cases of police firing on demonstrators in 2008 (20-30 people may have been shot dead in Aba town). Unlike Songpan county, where monasteries are small and scattered, Aba’s main monastery, called Kirti, is large and central. Monks at Kirti have been particularly prominent in the prefecture’s unrest, and the monastery is now under heavy police guard.

A report in the Guardian reports that such protests are likely to continue and even increase, according to residents of the region:

On Thursday monks who have recently made the perilous journey across the Himalayas to exile in India claimed leaflets were circulating in Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in China listing the names of scores of young people ready to publicly burn themselves alive to protest against Chinese policies .

Senior monks from the Kirti monastery in Aba county, the centre of the protests so far, told the Guardian that they feared it was inevitable many more would die over the coming months.

“I am 100% sure there will be more. The situation is suffocating and there is no other way to demonstrate anger,” said Kanyang Tsering, 32, a monk from Kirti living in Dharamsala.

Exiled leaders of Tibet have been quick to lay the blame at the feet of Chinese policy in the region. The Dalai Lama recently proclaimed what was happening to Tibetans in China, “cultural genocide,” while Lobsang Songay, the new Prime Minister of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile, offered support and compassion for those burning themselves. From Reuters:

Lobsang Sangay, the Harvard educated lawyer who this year replaced the Dalai Lama as the political leader of the exiled Tibetans, said an increased Chinese military presence around monasteries was “undeclared martial law.”

“Once a protest takes place it becomes our sacred duty to show solidarity and support, support for the voice that they raise, so the life that they sacrifice or the torture that they endure do not go in vain,” Sangay told Reuters.

“My duty as a political leader is echo or if possible magnify these voices, with sadness and pain obviously,” he said at his offices in the Himalayan town of Dharamsala in India.

And the Karmapa Lama, another influential high lama living in exile in India, called on protesters to cease the immolations:

The religious head also urged the Chinese leadership to “heed Tibetans’ legitimate demands and to enter into meaningful dialogue with them instead of brutally trying to achieve their silence.”

“The situation is unbearably difficult, but in difficult situations we need greater courage and determination,” said the Karmapa, urging the Tibetans in Tibet to preserve their lives.

According to an AFP report, other Tibetan exiles have mixed feelings on the use of self-immolation as a protest tactic:
.

..Some feel the ends justify the means, others are staunchly opposed to suicide or attempted suicide on religious grounds.

A culture of self-censorship due to heavy Chinese security and restrictions placed on reporters in the remote Himalayan province, make measuring opinion inside Tibet extremely difficult.

Geshey Lobsang, a monk at the monastery of the Dalai Lama in Dharamshala, the Tibetan spiritual leader’s home-in-exile in India, says when it comes to suicide the teachings of Buddhism are ambiguous.

“It is sin to destroy one’s body, but Buddhist philosophy also states that every action should be driven by good motivation and reason,” he told AFP.

The dangerous form of protest seems to be spreading as a Tibetan exile in Kathmandu, Nepal set himself on fire but did not suffer serious injury. Tibetans in India, meanwhile, have been protesting a recent Bollywood film, Rockstar, which blurs an image of the Tibetan flag during one song sequence.

See also: “Immolation, Explosions and Poetry on the Roof of the World” from CDT.

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The former monk, Norbu Damdrul, was the eighth monk or former monk to set himself on fire to protest China since March. All the self-immolations have taken place in Tibetan areas of Sichuan Province that lie in the remote region Tibetans call Amdo. At least four Tibetans have killed themselves in the wave of self-immolations, which scholars of modern Tibet say are a new and startling protest strategy by monks.

The attempt at self-immolation by Norbu was the seventh one this year in the town of Aba, called Ngaba by Tibetans. All of them have involved monks from Kirti Monastery, an institution that was a rallying point during the widespread Tibetan uprising in 2008.

Reports by advocacy groups say at least 10 Tibetans were killed by security forces during protests in Aba that spring. Many of the bodies were brought into Kirti, where monks took digital photographs of the corpses and transmitted them to people outside China. The photographs have been shown to foreign reporters visiting Kirti’s sister monastery in Dharamsala, India, the seat of power of the Tibetan government-in-exile and the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader.

Since the 2008 uprising, tension has built around Kirti Monastery, and at least 300 monks were taken away by security forces one night this April. They were sent to undergo “patriotic re-education,” according to reports by Tibetan groups, and many have not returned.

Also reported today, a nun has died from self-immolation, the first woman to do so. From VOA:

A Tibetan woman has killed herself by self-immolation three kilometers outside Ngaba County of eastern Tibet (Chinese: Aba County, Aba Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province) on Monday around 1PM local time, said Tibetan exile sources with contacts in the area.

Tenzin Wangmo, the 20-year-old nun of Mame Dechen Chokorling nunnery (also known as Mame nunnery), called for the return of Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and freedom for Tibet when she set herself on fire. She is reported to have died at the scene. The nun was from Nyitse family of Shakoma village in Ngaba.

(Listen to the report here)

Read more about self-immolations via CDT, including a recent report: “News of Tibetan Self-Immolation Incidents Censored Online“

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Post tags: Kirti monastery, self-immolations, Tibet independence, tibet politics, Tibet protests
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Police have cut Internet services and blocked roads near a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in southwest China where two monks set themselves alight in a call for religious freedom, according to witnesses.
Authorities in Sichuan province’s Aba county also ordered groups of more than six people together to break up in apparent attempts to prevent protests, and mobile phones could not send or receive text messages, locals said.
The two young monks cried “long live the Dalai Lama” as they set themselves on fire Monday at the Kirti monastery, scene of repeated protests against religious repression, rights groups have said.
Both were reported to have survived and been taken to hospital, but earlier self-immolations by monks at the same monastery have triggered major protests, and local residents reported a heavy police presence on Tuesday.

On September 28, Global Times issued an editorial about the incidents titled, “Monks’ Tragedy Accords with the Dalai Lama’s Schemes” (僧侣悲剧符合达赖的谋算).” Since then, at least three more monks at Kirti Monastery have self-immolated.

An anonymous netizen posted translations of error messages received when posting a search query on Baidu for “monk, self-immolation” and related terms, showing that the “Ministry of Truth” is hard at work trying to scrub all news about the protests. But the anonymous translator continues:

This isn’t to say that Internet users in China are prohibited from discussing incidences of self-immolation. The following is a translation of some of the comments on the Global Times’ editorial:

They’re all a bunch of extremists, they will develop into terrorists. (都是一些极端分子，发展下去就是恐怖分子)
Burn a few more morons like that, and Tibet will be peaceful. (多烧死几个这样的傻瓜，西藏就安宁了。)
Why not let a few more burn themselves to death? If more of the faithful self-immolate, we can label the Dalai Lama an evil cult, and resolutely ban and strike him down. (多自焚几个又何妨?自焚的信徒多了，我们也可以把达赖的一支列为邪教，坚决取缔并打击之。)
Why pay attention to them? We hold the land in our hands, and its a waste of time and effort to negotiate with them. If they want to make trouble, just let them. (理它干嘛，土地在我们手里，和它们谈判是浪费时间和人力，敢闹事就搞它。)
The country should adopt extreme measures with these separatists. The only credible way is to strike at them ruthlessly and mercilessly. (国家对这些分裂分子应该采取极端手段进行无情的狠狠打击才是正道。)
The Tibetan region really has too many Lamas, it seems like they comprise 10% of the whole population. Its consuming a large amount of state assistance feeding and clothing tens of thousands of troublemakers who constantly do things that threaten the nation, not to mention the increasing costs of stability maintenance. The country should consider cutting support for Buddhism in the Tibetan region, so that it doesn’t become a huge financial burden on the state. (藏区的喇嘛确实太多了，几乎占了总人口的十分之一强，养了几十万闲人还不停做出危害国家的事，也无形增加了维稳开支，更是消耗掉了大量的国家援助，国家应当考虑缩减对藏区佛教的支出，不能成为巨额财政负担。)
If its really like that, then go ahead and die. (真是那样，那就去死吧。)
Buddhism really has problems: Its not productive and doesn’t get handed down from generation to generation. They meditate all day long, and need so many others to take care of them. How is society supposed to progress when all the means of production are used to feed and clothe the monks? (佛教的确有问题一不生产；二不传宗接代。天天念经，还要人那么多人供养。都把生产资料供养僧侣了，社会还怎么发展？)
Is that old fart still alive? (这老癞子还活着？)
Kill all political monks. (打死政治和尚.)
Those who want to go to heaven – let them go! (愿意上西天尽管放他们去嘛！)
Let more Dalai Lama supporters burn themselves to death. (多自焚几个达赖的支持者吧)

A new report from Human Rights Watch looks at how increased spending on security in the Aba region may in fact have contributed to the recent outburst of protests and increased tensions between Han Chinese and Tibetans:

Human Rights Watch has documented a dramatic increase in security expenditure by the Chinese government in the Aba region since 2002, although there were no reported incidents of significant unrest until 2008. These findings suggest that the increase in government spending on security has contributed to provocative policing techniques such as monastery blockades and the mass detentions of monks that have repeatedly contributed to local discontent and unrest.

The increased security measures appear to have been a major factor in the escalation of tensions that have led to several protests in which monks tried to set themselves on fire to bring attention to the situation in Aba. In the October 7 incident, Choepel and Khaying, two young Tibetans who had been monks at Kirti monastery (“Ge Erde” in Chinese), set fire to themselves.

The monastery has been the site of six self-immolations this year, as well as larger nonviolent protests by monks and lay people, many of whom were subsequently detained

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The two former monks, 18-year-old Thongan and 20-year-old Tenzin, set themselves on fire in Aba county in Sichuan province’s Aba prefecture Friday, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

Xinhua cited an Aba county spokesman as saying the monks were rescued and were being treated at a local hospital for non-life-threatening injuries ….

Overseas Tibet activist groups gave slightly different accounts of the self-immolations. The Washington, D.C.-based International Campaign for Tibet said the two men were named Choephel, 19, and Kayang, 18, and that they clasped their hands together as they set themselves alight.

It and the London-based Free Tibet group said there were unconfirmed reports that Choephel died at the site.

The Guardian notes yet more confusion in accounts of the incident, as well as the relative novelty of this form of protest among Tibetans:

The public security bureau in Aba denied any knowledge of an incident. “Nothing like that happened here. I am not aware of the situation,” a spokeswoman told Reuters, despite claims that police officers had helped extinguish the flames and beaten the men as they took them to hospital.

Until 2009 experts knew of only one Tibetan self-immolation, by a lay person living overseas. But today’s death was the second at Kirti within a week – another monk set fire to himself on Monday – and the seventh in Sichuan within two and a half years. “This is a new development … We are all struggling for the right words to characterise what is happening,” said Kate Saunders of the International Campaign for Tibet.

In South Africa, meanwhile, controversy continues over the Dalai Lama’s absence from Desmond Tutu’s 80th birthday celebrations due to a visa “hiccup”. From The Guardian:

The South African government’s failure to grant an entry visa to the Dalai Lama has cast a pall over Tutu’s birthday week, with the archbishop denouncing the governing African National Congress (ANC) as worse than the apartheid regime, and warning that he would pray for its defeat ….

The ANC has denied giving in to Chinese pressure over the Dalai Lama’s visa, claiming it is still being processed and calling on Tutu to “calm down”. When asked if the Dalai Lama would be granted a visa, Motlanthe reportedly said: “I don’t see why it should be an issue at all ….”

The Dalai Lama is set to deliver a peace lecture via videolink on Saturday. His absence in Cape Town will be symbolised by an empty chair.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, Kirti monastery, self-immolations, Sichuan, South Africa, suicide, Tibet
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