Dharamsala, Feb 4: Why are Tibetans setting themselves afire in China? Protests against repression or a desperate attempt, as China holds, to get global attention to their cause?
The reason is simple: a total failure of China's policy in more than 60 years of its rule in Tibet, says Thubten Samphel, director of the Tibet Policy Institute, a think-tank under the Tibetan government-in-exile, which last week released a white paper to find out reasons for self-immolation protests.
About 100 monks, nuns and lay people, a majority of them teenagers, have set themselves afire in Tibet since 2009 to protest against Beijing's "repressive policies" and demand the return of the Dalai Lama to his homeland, says the Tibetan government-in-exile here.
