Beijing
(AsiaNews) - The People's court of the northwestern province
of Qinghai this morning sentenced to
13 years in prison a Tibetan accused of having "incited" a Buddhist
Monk to set themselves on fire against Communist rule and in favor of the
return of the Dalai Lama in Tibet.
The man, identified as Phagpa, was found guilty of "murder" even if
the monk in question did not commit suicide.
This is the second conviction for murder issued by a Chinese court against the
alleged "instigators" of the self-immolations in Tibet in the last month, the courts
have in fact announced to the public that "this will be a charge for all found
guilty." To date 99 Tibetans have
set themselves on fire in China
(since 2009) to protest against Beijing and its
repressive policy towards the culture and religion of Tibet. According
to the Tibetan government in exile, 83 of them have died.
To try to stop this extreme form of protest, the Communist government has
chosen an iron fist: again in Qinghai,
Chinese police arrested 70 people "in relation to a series of suicides."
According to Xinhua, citing a
"police investigation", the "Dalai clique piloted suicide for
their own perverse purposes ". Both the Tibetan government in exile and
the Buddhist religious leaders have repeatedly asked the Tibetans to
"always preserve life."
According to some police officers "many of the suicide victims had personal
problems" and Xinhua cited the
case of a 26 year old woman - Kyihe Monky - who "had divorced her husband
a few months before she committed suicide because he had many sexual relations
with other men" .
Several Tibetan sources instead connect the increase in suicides to the
increasingly repressive policies of the regime, which currently prevents minors
from entering Buddhist temples, prohibits the teaching of the Tibetan language
and traditional culture and gives the population of Han better employment and
advantages than the Tibetans themselves.