At the New York Times, Andrew Jacobs reports that a 20-year-old Tibetan woman died Monday after self-immolating in protest of Chinese policies in Tibetan regions of China:
The woman, Tsepe Kyi, described as a 20-year-old nomad from Aba County in the Chinese province of Sichuan, died there, Free Tibet and Radio Free Asia reported. The authorities were said to have later detained her parents and a brother for questioning.
In Tibetan areas of China, family members with advance knowledge of a self-immolation can face jail time.
The latest self-immolation, the second this month, brought to 135 the number of Tibetans who have set themselves ablaze since 2009 in a campaign protesting what many Tibetans describe as intrusive government policies. [Source]
Aba (Ngaba in Tibetan) has been the scene of much unrest and many self-immolations in recent years. On December 17, the Times cited Radio Free Asia to report that a 33-year-old Tibetan man was killed after self-immolating in a Tibetan region of Gansu Province:
The man, Sangye Khar, 33, self-immolated in the mountain town of Sangchu, known as Xiahe in Chinese, home to the Labrang Monastery, one of the most important sites in Tibetan Buddhism and a major tourist attraction. The self-immolation, the third in a row to take place outside a police station, coincided with a major Tibetan religious festival. [Source]
Read more on Tibet and the ongoing wave of protest by self-immolation, via CDT.
