by Nirmala Carvalho

Bhenchen Kyi, a 17-year-old student, chose self-immolation to demand the return of the Dalai Lama. Before dying she asked her friends not to let the Chinese take her body. Speaker of Tibetan parliament-in-exile tells AsiaNews that China uses only "repression," calls for the world to stop Beijing.

Lhasa (AsiaNews) - A 17-yer-old woman sets herself on fire in Dokarmo, in eastern Tibet, to demand the return of the Dalai Lama and the survival of the Tibetan people. Bhenchen Kyi, a student, asked her first friends before her death not to let the Chinese take her body. After her self-immolation, Tibetan monks cremated her in front of 3,000 weeping people. She is the 95^th self-immolation since the start of the protest.

Bhenchen's suicide took place on Sunday, a day before International Human Rights Day. Yet, the basic rights of the Tibetan people "interest nobody," this according to Penpa Tsering, speaker of Tibetan Parliament".

"China should allow international bodies to investigate not just this incident but all cases of Tibetans being detained, arrested and jailed," he told AsiaNews. "Only the world's pressure can achieve this, but at present that is not very effective."

"Chinese repression in Tibet is heavy-handed. The party denies the people its basic rights," Penpa explained. "Despite Beijing's charges, the Dalai Lama and Tibetan leaders have repeatedly tried to discourage their Tibetan brothers and sisters from killing themselves. In spite of this, the number of self-immolation in Tibet is rising."

Popular unrest in Tibet scares China's Communist rulers. Since it started, the local uprising has undermined domestic stability. Instead of opening channels of dialogue, the regime has always opted for harsh repression. Now, the party wants to blame the Dalai Lama. Various Chinese media accuse the Buddhist leader of being a "puppet of the United States and India, using innocent lives for obscure purposes."

In a related incident, police in Sichuan province detained Lorang Konchok, a 40-year-old monk, and his 31-year-old nephew, for inciting eight people to set themselves on fire on orders of the Dalai Lama. Held in an unknown location, they are expected to be convicted in the next days.

The Tibetan government-in-exile has strongly denied Chinese accusations. "The party arrested them based on serious charges. This is not enough. Beijing must the authorities do not want this; they want Tibet completely cut off from the outside world."

• china
• tibet
• repression
• penpa