Taiwan News, Newspaper | |
associated pressBEIJING
A Tibetan rights group has released graphic video of what it says is a Buddhist nun engulfed in flames on a city street in one of several apparent self-immolation protests against Chinese rule.
The video, released Monday by Students for a Free Tibet, purports to show Palden Choetso, whose death on Nov. 3 in predominantly Tibetan Ganzi prefecture in Sichuan province had previously been reported.
The video shows a woman in nun’s robes standing on a street corner covered in bright red flames. She collapses to the ground after about 15 seconds.
Additional footage shows about 10,000 mourners gathering at a monastery for a candlelight vigil on Nov. 6 to pay their respects to the 35-year-old nun while about 1,000 monks and nuns hold prayers inside.
The video also shows Chinese security forces in riot gear shadowing monks and nuns taking part in a protest march, and a column of armored paramilitary police patrol vehicles traveling down a country road. The New York-based Students of a Free Tibet said it obtained the video from sources in the region.
China restricts journalists’ access to Tibetan areas of western China and to Tibet itself, and it is nearly impossible to verify statements about conditions there.
Those who filmed the incidents and then smuggled out the footage must have gone to great lengths and undertaken huge risks, said Tenzin Dorjee, Students for a Free Tibet’s executive director.
“And for us there is absolutely no question that this needs to be seen by the world so that the world may be galvanized to take action on behalf of the Tibetan people who are at this point completely silenced by the Chinese government,” he told The Associated Press in New York.
At least 11 monks, nuns and former monks have self-immolated this year in what are seen as acts of desperation in the face of tightening controls over Tibetan life and Buddhist culture.
Most ignited the flames while calling 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.
China claims Tibet has always been part of its territory, but many Tibetans say the Himalayan region was virtually independent for centuries.
Authorities routinely deny Tibetan claims of repression, although they have confirmed some cases of self-immolations and accused supporters of the Dalai Lama of encouraging such acts. The Dalai Lama and representatives of the self-declared Tibetan government-in-exile in India say they oppose all violence.
Tibet experts say self-immolation is not a traditional means of political protest among Tibetans, but the recent cases are a sign of how difficult conditions have become in western China.
Tibetan areas of western China were relatively calm in the 1980s and 1990s, especially compared to protest-hit Tibet proper. But conditions there have deteriorated since the introduction of new controls and a campaign of vilification against the Dalai Lama, said Robbie Barnett, head of modern Tibetan studies at New York’s Columbia University.
Self-immolations are an extreme expressions of tensions that have spiked since the outbreak of massive anti-government protests in 2008, Barnett said.
“It is a new chapter in the way that Tibetans try to communicate their concerns to the Chinese government,” Barnett said. “China would be very unwise not to take this seriously.”
A Tibetan rights group has released graphic video of what it says is a Buddhist nun engulfed in flames on a city street in one of several apparent self-immolation protests against Chinese rule.
The video, released Monday by Students for a Free Tibet, purports to show Palden Choetso, whose death on Nov. 3 in predominantly Tibetan Ganzi prefecture in Sichuan province had previously been reported.
The video shows a woman in nun’s robes standing on a street corner covered in bright red flames. She collapses to the ground after about 15 seconds.
Additional footage shows about 10,000 mourners gathering at a monastery for a candlelight vigil on Nov. 6 to pay their respects to the 35-year-old nun while about 1,000 monks and nuns hold prayers inside.
The video also shows Chinese security forces in riot gear shadowing monks and nuns taking part in a protest march, and a column of armored paramilitary police patrol vehicles traveling down a country road. The New York-based Students of a Free Tibet said it obtained the video from sources in the region.
China restricts journalists’ access to Tibetan areas of western China and to Tibet itself, and it is nearly impossible to verify statements about conditions there.
Those who filmed the incidents and then smuggled out the footage must have gone to great lengths and undertaken huge risks, said Tenzin Dorjee, Students for a Free Tibet’s executive director.
“And for us there is absolutely no question that this needs to be seen by the world so that the world may be galvanized to take action on behalf of the Tibetan people who are at this point completely silenced by the Chinese government,” he told The Associated Press in New York.
At least 11 monks, nuns and former monks have self-immolated this year in what are seen as acts of desperation in the face of tightening controls over Tibetan life and Buddhist culture.
Most ignited the flames while calling 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.
China claims Tibet has always been part of its territory, but many Tibetans say the Himalayan region was virtually independent for centuries.
Authorities routinely deny Tibetan claims of repression, although they have confirmed some cases of self-immolations and accused supporters of the Dalai Lama of encouraging such acts. The Dalai Lama and representatives of the self-declared Tibetan government-in-exile in India say they oppose all violence.
Tibet experts say self-immolation is not a traditional means of political protest among Tibetans, but the recent cases are a sign of how difficult conditions have become in western China.
Tibetan areas of western China were relatively calm in the 1980s and 1990s, especially compared to protest-hit Tibet proper. But conditions there have deteriorated since the introduction of new controls and a campaign of vilification against the Dalai Lama, said Robbie Barnett, head of modern Tibetan studies at New York’s Columbia University.
Self-immolations are an extreme expressions of tensions that have spiked since the outbreak of massive anti-government protests in 2008, Barnett said.
“It is a new chapter in the way that Tibetans try to communicate their concerns to the Chinese government,” Barnett said. “China would be very unwise not to take this seriously.”
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