A Tibetan man set himself on fire and died in Gansu province on Saturday, according to Radio Free Asia, the third self-immolation in the past week:
Sangay Gyatso, 27, self-immolated in a monastery compound near Tsoe (in Chinese, Hezuo) county, the administrative center of the Kanlho (Gannan) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in southern Gansu.
“He set himself on fire a little after noon near a stupa in the premises of the Dokar monastery,” a source inside Tibet told RFA’s Tibetan service.
The monastery is situated about 10 km (6.2 miles) from the Tsoe town center.
The sources provided grisly photographs of Sangay Gyatso’s charred body but little information of his personal background, only saying his father was identified as Gonpo Dhondup and his mother as Gonpo Tso.
With Gyatso’s death, Radio Free Asia tallied 54 total self-immolations since early 2009, though the count varies by source. Last week, a writer who had spoken out against Chinese repression burned himself to death within the Tibetan Autonomous Region, and Chinese courts have recently handed down harsh sentences to several Tibetan men accused of supporting self-immolations and leaking news of Tibetan protests. And two weeks ago, more than 400 Tibetan delegates (a group that did not include the Dalai Lama) attended a gathering in Dharamsala, India, to urge their fellow Tibetans to stop self-immolating and instead focus on gaining global support for their struggle against China.
See also the latest installment of CDT’s Hexie Farm series, in which cartoonist Crazy Crab of Hexie Farm honors the Tibetans who have self-immolated in protest against Beijing’s policies in the region.
