Dharamshala, 3rd April: RFA reported today that an 81-year-old Tibetan man died after a self-immolation protest against Chinese control last week outside a police station in front of a major monastery in the western Chinese province of Sichuan. The report mentioned that the Kirti event occurred three days before the most recent documented self-immolation, which occurred in front of a Chinese police station outside a Buddhist monastery in Kyegudo (in Chinese, Jiegu), in the Yushul (Yushu) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai. His whereabouts and other facts are unknown.
The death on March 27 of a man identified as Taphun brings the total number of Tibetans who have set themselves on fire since 2009 to 160, almost all in protest against Chinese authority in the Tibetan Autonomous Region and historically Tibetan parts of Sichuan and Qinghai provinces.
According to Kanyak Tsering, a spokesman at the monastery’s branch in Dharamsala, India, who spoke to RFA said “On the 27th of March, around 5 o’clock in the morning, 81-year-old Taphun self-immolated in front of a police station near Kirti Monastery in a protest against the Chinese government’s oppression, He was immediately taken away by the Chinese police. Though it’s been a few days since we learned about this incident, now it is confirmed that he has passed away,”
The 550-year-old Kirti Monastery is located in Sichuan Province’s Ngaba Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, which was once part of Tibet’s Amdo area until it was incorporated by China.
“The place where Taphun self-immolated is in front of the police station that is right outside Kirti Monastery’s entrance,” Tsering continued. He added that March is traditionally a problematic month for Tibetans, with numerous Tibetans in Ngaba self-immolating in the past; there are more restrictions and police presence than usual around this period, and Tibetans are frequently arbitrarily interrogated by Chinese authorities.
In Tibetan areas, high-tech controls on phone and internet communications prevent news of Tibetan protests and arrests from reaching the outside world, and spreading news of self-immolations outside China has resulted in prison sentences.