Dharamshala, 6th April: Hundreds of Tibetans gathered in Dharamshala on Monday for a candlelight vigil in memory of a Tibetan man who self-immolated on March 27. On Monday evening, five major Tibetan NGOs joined together to hold a candlelight vigil in support of Taphun.
Taphun, an 81-year-old Tibetan, self-immolated in Kirti, Ngaba County, for the Tibetan cause. He self-immolated outside the public security bureau office, which was established in 2008 to monitor the monastery region, near the Kirti monastery compound. Since 2009, this is the 159th self-immolation for the Tibetan cause.
The death 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.
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 Kirti incident 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.
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.
RFA reported in mid-February that a Chinese police surveillance team was working inside a Buddhist monastery for the first time, as part of a fresh crackdown on Tibetan Buddhist religious institutions. So much for “freedom.” Surveillance cameras were put outside the monastery, and officers inside kept an eye on the monks around the clock. Some young monks were pressured to attend Chinese government-run schools.
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