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BEIJING — A 20-year-old Buddhist monk set himself on fire on Friday evening near a government building in Sichuan Province, becoming the 29th person to do so as part of a yearlong protest against Chinese policies in traditionally Tibetan areas, overseas advocacy groups said.
The monk, Lobsang Tsultrim, of Kirti Monastery in the town of Aba (or Ngaba, as it is known in Tibetan), shouted slogans calling for freedom as he set the fire about 5 p.m., according to Radio Free Asia and Free Tibet, a London group.
Chinese security officers quickly extinguished the flames and beat the monk before throwing him onto the back of an open truck, said Radio Free Asia, citing two exiled monks with contacts at the monastery.
“He was seen being taken away, but he kept pumping his fists in the air,” one of the monks, Kanyag Tsering, was quoted as saying.
There was no immediate word on his condition.
At least 18 of those who have set themselves on fire in the last year have died, the majority of them monks from the same restive corner of northern Sichuan Province.
The latest self-immolation, the third this week, occurred on the same day that an estimated 1,000 people took to the streets in Qinghai Province, Radio Free Asia reported. The marchers demanded the release of 50 monks who were seized a day earlier by the police after they raised a Tibetan flag and banners demanding the return of the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan religious leader.
Radio Free Asia said that paramilitary police officers surrounded the protesters as they gathered at a government building in Tongde County, known as Gepasumdo in Tibetan, but that they did not try to stop the march.
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