Tibetan man in his 50s sets himself on fire

Tibetan exiles participate in a candlelit vigil in solidarity after reports of 52-year-old Tamdrin Dorjee’s self-immolation in Tsoe Monastery in northwestern China’s Gansu province, in Dharmsala, India, Saturday, Oct. 13, 2012. Dorjee, the grandfather of a revered Tibetan Buddhist figure died Saturday after setting himself on fire in protest of Chinese rule, the London-based rights group Free Tibet said. It said the man is the grandfather of the 7th Gungthang Rinpoche, believed by Tibetan Buddhists to be the reincarnation of an important religious figure. (AP Photo/ Ashwini Bhatia)

BEIJING — A Tibetan man in his 50s is believed to have died after setting himself on fire Monday in the latest protest against Chinese rule over the Himalayan region, a London-based rights group said.

Free Tibet said the man identified as Dhondup set fire to himself near the prayer hall at the remote Labrang Monastery in China’s northwestern Gansu province.

The monastery is one of the most important outside of Tibet and was the site of numerous protests by monks following deadly ethnic riots in Tibet in 2008 that were the most sustained Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule in decades.

Free Tibet said Monday’s self-immolation was the first to take place there, and that there have been heavy restrictions in place in the area in recent months.

Citing a witness, it said the monastery manager and other monks prevented police from taking Dhondup’s body away.

Calls to the government in Xiahe County, where the monastery is located, the Xiahe Communist Propaganda Department and Xiahe Public Security Bureau rang unanswered.

Dozens of Tibetans have set themselves on fire since March 2011 in ethnic Tibetan areas of China in protest over what activists say is Beijing’s heavy-handed rule in the region. Many have called for the return of their spiritual leader, the exiled Dalai Lama. The government has confirmed some, but not all, of the self-immolations.

“Tibetan protests are escalating,” Free Tibet director Stephanie Brigden said in a statement. “Dhondup is the eighth Tibetan in the last month alone who has risked his life to protest Chinese rule; seven of the eight have died.”

She said China’s government could recognize that Tibetan demands for freedom cannot be extinguished by force and that it “must enter into meaningful dialogue with Tibetan representatives, supported by the international community.”

Chinese authorities routinely deny Tibetan claims of repression and have accused supporters of the Dalai Lama of encouraging the self-immolations. The Dalai Lama and representatives of the self-declared Tibetan government-in-exile in India say they oppose all violence.