Tibetans Rounded Up Over Recent Self-Immolations

The Chinese government, in an effort to discourage future actions of dissent, has reportedly detained hundreds of Tibetans who appeared on surveillance video in order to question them about a recent protest in which two young men disgruntled with Chinese rule lit themselves on fire.

The Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy that Chinese police just hours after a 33-year-old mother set herself on fire in Sichuan province rounded up residents of Tibetan capital city Lhasa that were present, according to sercurity videos, at two other self-immolations earlier in the day.

The three latest protests are part of a series of self-immolations occurring across Tibet over the past 14 months. This form of protest has grown in popularity because the unofficial state of martial law instituted by China has limited ways Tibetans can express their dissent with the current state of affairs.

Said Australian National University's John Powers to Voice of America:

“The Chinese state has upped the level of oppression so much that now it's really only possible to stage individual protests, and that's one of the reasons why these very public, very dramatic self-immolations are taking place — because the Tibetans really have no other options.”

The Chinese government maintain that the wave of self-immolations encourage instability and originate from outside Tibet, suggesting that the Dalai Lama has instigated them from afar.

Yeah, whatever. Sounds more like desperate people going to extreme measures to get out from under extreme oppression. More reasons to hate China.

Read all about it: http://bit.ly/L9LQDl.