An 18-year-old Tibetan nun set herself on fire in western China in the latest such protest against Beijing’s handling of the vast ethnic Tibetan regions it rules, an overseas activist group said yesterday.
Free Tibet said the nun died after setting herself ablaze on Saturday. Tenzin Choedon was a nun at the Mamae nunnery in Sichuan province’s Aba prefecture.
The group said Choedon shouted slogans of protest against the Chinese government before setting herself on fire at a junction close to the nunnery.
"Soldiers and police came immediately and took her away," Free Tibet said. "Soldiers then surrounded the nunnery and sealed it off."
As many as 18 monks, nuns and ordinary Tibetans have set themselves on fire over the past year.
a d v e r t i s e m e n t
This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Monday, February 13, 2012
