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  • New Zealand Listener

    Ultimate sacrifice

    Dec 27, 2020 4 minutes
    by JEREMY REES

    On March 16, 2011, Rigzin Phuntsog, a usually smiling young Tibetan Buddhist monk, set himself alight in the Chinese town of Ngaba in protest at what he saw as repression by the government. He wasn’t the first. Two years before, another young monk, Lobsang Tashi, set himself alight, but he survived, becoming an invalid kept in a Chinese hospital. Henceforward, monks drenched themselves in gasoline, drank it so they burnt from the inside and wrapped wire coils around their bodies so their burning clothes could not be removed. They were determined to die.

    By the time Barbara Demick finished her account in 2019, 156 Tibetans had killed themselves,

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