20 Tibetan students were sent to hospital, with at least 5 in critical condition, after Chinese security forces put down a large protest on Monday, according to reports.
The protest, reportedly involving more than 1,000 students and teachers, comes after 5 recent self-immolations this week. The total number of self-immolations for this month alone stands at 22, with 86 having been reported since 2009 according to Radio Free Asia.
The protests allegedly occurred after booklets were distributed that condemned self-immolations as well as belittled the Tibetan language. Protestors marched into the town of Chabcha calling for the free use of the Tibetan language in their education system.
They also carried banners that read "You may not arrest my kin" and "You may not kill my friend".
Commenting on the recent increased spate of self-immolations, James Leibold, a Tibet analyst for Australia's Latrobe University in Beijing said,
The protest, reportedly involving more than 1,000 students and teachers, comes after 5 recent self-immolations this week. The total number of self-immolations for this month alone stands at 22, with 86 having been reported since 2009 according to Radio Free Asia.
The protests allegedly occurred after booklets were distributed that condemned self-immolations as well as belittled the Tibetan language. Protestors marched into the town of Chabcha calling for the free use of the Tibetan language in their education system.
They also carried banners that read "You may not arrest my kin" and "You may not kill my friend".
Commenting on the recent increased spate of self-immolations, James Leibold, a Tibet analyst for Australia's Latrobe University in Beijing said,
"We've got the provinces that sort of surround the Tibetan autonomous region all having self-immolations in the last couple months, as well as the diversity of the people involved, in terms of age ranges, in terms of occupations. Both laypeople and monks and nuns [are] involved in these self-immolations. Without a doubt, it's really reaching a crisis point,"
"Sadly, we hear the same rhetoric coming out of Beijing, and Chinese officials continually blaming a few black hands for collaborating with the Dalai Lama and the exiled Tibetan community to stir up trouble and to damage China's ethnic unity and harmony. There's just absolutely no will, it seems, to admit a failure of policy".
