For monks, self-immolation has become an act of political protest



A woman throws a white scarf over Tibetan Buddhist nun Palden Choetso as she burns on the street in Daofu, or Tawu in Tibetan, in this still image taken from video / Reuters

In what Time Magazine calls the most "under-reported story of the year," Tibetan Buddhists are burning themselves alive in China as a plea for freedom. So far, Time reports 8 cases this year alone; the Washington Post says there have been 12 since March.

On November 23rd, Palden Choetso, a 35 year old nun, walked an hour down the twisting mountain road from the Ganden Jangchup Choeling Nunnery into the nearby town of Daofu (or Tawu, in Tibetan), where she drank several kilograms of gasoline, settled onto a public road, and set herself on fire. As she burned, she shouted, "I want the Dalai Lama to return to China, I want freedom for Tibet!" Only after the protest group Students for a Free Tibet smuggled this footage of Choetso's death out of Tibet did news of her death reach the outside world.

The other self-immolaters this year, called "terrorists" by China's Foreign Ministry, all spoke out for the return of the Dalai Lama -- who was exiled by the Chinese to India in 1959 -- and freedom for Tibet. The Dalai Lama has not supported the burnings, but he has said that China's rigid political control of Tibet has forced conditions of "cultural genocide" onto his country, and he emphasized that these actions need to be understood in light of what Tibetans have gone through.