BEIJING (AP) — An overseas rights group says a Tibetan woman was hospitalized after setting herself on fire during a land rights protest in western China.
London-based Free Tibet says Dekyi Choezom, believed to be around 40 years old, set herself on fire June 27 in Yushu, a city in Qinghai province that was badly damaged by an earthquake in 2010. The group said in an emailed statement Tuesday that she was among a group of 70 families protesting being evicted from land seized to make way for new government offices.
The case adds to about three dozen self-immolations over the past year in ethnic Tibetan areas of China in protest of what activists say is Beijing’s heavy-handed rule in the region. The government has confirmed some but not all of them