Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Lhasa burning: 2 Tibetans set themselves ablaze :- 29.5.12-TOI


Beijing: Two men set themselves on fire to protest against the Chinese government in Tibet’s capital, Lhasa, in the middle of a large crowd which had gathered to worship the Buddha on Sunday. One of them died while the other is seriously injured.
    Xinhua, Chinese official news agency, said police rushed to the spot and doused the flames within “two minutes”. This is the first self-immolation by Tibetans in Lhasa in recent times indicating that the protest has spread deep in Tibet, thus mounting renewed pressure on the Chinese government.
    Earlier, there were 34 cases of self-immolations in Tibetan speaking provinces neighbouring Tibet.
    The self-immolation is being perceived as a challenge to the command and control of the Communist Party and Lhasa-based military personnel, who have so far kept the Tibetan capital free from such protests, sources said.
    Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said in Beijing that the “political motivation behind inciting this kind of harmful incident will not succeed”.
    Xinhua quoted Hao Peng, secretary of the Commission for Political and Legal Affairs of the party’s Tibet Committee, saying, “They were a continuation of the self-immolations in other Tibetan areas and these acts were all aimed at separating Tibet from China.”
Dad of Tiananmen victim kills self
    
The father of a man killed in the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown has hanged himself in protest after two decades of failed attempts to seek government redress, a support group said on Monday. AP
Ex-minister thrown out of party for graft
    
China has expelled former railways minister Liu Zhijun from the ruling Communist Party for suspected involvement in economic crimes, state media said on Monday, the latest step in a corruption investigation into railways.

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