Self-immolation: mother-of-four dies after setting herself ablaze in protest against China's rule over Tibet

A Tibetan mother of four young children has killed herself in the latest self-immolation protest against Chinese rule.


Kalkyi, 30, pictured above, doused her body in petrol before lighting a match near a monastery in Sichuan province's Aba county in western China yesterday.

The mother died at the scene and her body was placed in the nearby Jonang Tibetan Buddhist monastery, Radio Free Asia reports.


Her death comes just a week after 28-year old Kirti monk Lobsang Thogme set fire to himself on March 16 in Aba.
Tibetan rights advocates say the self-immolations aim to protest Chinese rule and call for the return of exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama. China accuses the Dalai Lama's supporters of encouraging the suicides.
Calls to the local government and police rang unanswered today.


Self-immolations reveal the desperation among Tibet's youth after 60 years under Beijing's thumb.


The Chinese government has sought to crack down on Tibetan dissidents issuing a stern warning to the authorities of eastern Tibet to punish all self-immolators and their relatives - and even those who send condolences to bereaved families.


It said all government aid would be removed from the families of self-immolators while development projects in communities that have been home to such protesters would be cancelled.


The charity and campaign group Free Tibet says it has documented multiple cases of collective punishment, imposed against the communities and families were individuals have set themselves on fire, or were other forms of protest have taken place.


It says punishments have included homes being ransacked, development projects which were planned for a village cancelled and ‘public criticism’.


Of the 110 protesters who have set themselves on fire, the majority have died of their injuries. Those who survive, are arrested and taken away. They are rarely seen again, say campaign groups.


Stephanie Bridger, director of Free Tibet, said: 'Tibetans from all walks of life, young and old, mothers, nomads, students, monks and nuns are rejecting China’s occupation of their homeland.


'China is trying to crush protest through arbitrary detention, collective punishment, communications blackouts, bribery and much more – this has only strengthened the resolve of the Tibetan people in their struggle for freedom.
'Free Tibet is receiving reports of protests inside Tibet on an almost daily basis. These protests will only continue until each and everyone one of us stands with the Tibetan people in their struggle for freedom and our Governments stop kowtowing to an unelected Chinese regime.'


But it is also a moral and policy dilemma for Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and a new generation of exiled politicians.


The Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959 with hundreds of followers and they set up base in Dharamsala, a town in the Himalayan foothills about 400 km (250 miles) north of New Delhi.


The deaths raise theological questions about non-violence and highlight a long-standing schism between the elderly Dalai Lama's softly, softly approach to China and activists who want to fight for independence.
culled from MAILONLINE