Students for a Free Tibet just put out this release on the shooting of a monk who had self-immolated in protest in Tibet.

Hong Kong – A Tibetan monk was shot by Chinese police today after he set himself on fire at 1:40pm Beijing Time in Ngaba town (Chinese: Aba) in eastern Tibet. According to eyewitnesses, Tape, a monk in his 20’s from Kirti monastery, was shouting slogans and carrying a homemade Tibetan flag with an image of the Dalai Lama on it when he set himself on fire at the crossroads of the main market. Eyewitness reports indicate the police fired three shots at Tape after he set himself on fire. At least one of the bullets made contact. His body was removed almost immediately and it is unclear whether he survived the incident.

“That a young monk felt compelled to self-immolate in protest shows that China’s repression in Tibet is driving Tibetans to the brink,” said Lhadon Tethong, Executive Director of Students for a Free Tibet. “This desperate action is a reflection of the intense frustration and pain that all Tibetans are feeling after nearly a year of being mercilessly targeted and oppressed by the Chinese authorities, and after having endured 50 years of subjugation at the hands of the Chinese government.”

Reports from Kirti monastery indicate that Tape’s protest came shortly after 1,000 monks, including Tape, were stopped from entering the monastery’s main prayer hall to engage in prayers for the 3rd day of Losar, the Tibetan New Year. After being blocked from entering the hall, the monks sat down outside and were preparing to go ahead with their prayers when older monks pleaded with them to disperse. The monks complied and went back to their rooms. Shortly afterwards, Tape came out of the monastery and once on the street he took out the flag and began walking towards the main market just a few minutes away.

Dozens of Tibetans from Ngaba and the surrounding area were killed last year, and many more disappeared and were imprisoned, when protests swept across Tibet. Graphic photos of Tibetans shot and killed by Chinese forces in Ngaba were some of the only images of the fatalities in the protests that reached the outside world. Following the protests, the monks of Kirti monastery were the targets of some of the most extreme torture, abuse and intimidation by Chinese authorities. The entire region has been under lockdown for the past year and in recent months foreigners have been blocked from entering Ngaba.

Also, Tibet Will Be Free has posted a series of photos released by Radio Free Asia of hundreds of monks from Lutsang Monastery holding a candlelight vigil in Mangra County, Tibet. Kate at TWBF points out: “Lutsang Monastery is located in Mangra Country, a few hours from Rebong. Monks from this same monastery also took part in a protest last year on March 10, 2008.”

Update:

The Guardian has a story on the immolation/shooting of the Tibetan monk Tabe, with added reports from Free Tibet Campaign.

NPR:

During visits to four monasteries, pictures of the Dalai Lama were openly displayed, a symbol of resistance to Chinese rule. The heightened security, including police presence and increased troop deployments in Tibetan areas, means protests are less likely this year. For one monk, “Cerdan,” whose real name was withheld to protect his identity, openly showing the Dalai Lama’s picture has become a test of will.

“Even if there are problems, we’ll display his picture. Even if they kill us, we’ll display it,” he said.

Episode 12 of “Our Nation” includes a discussion of today’s New York Times front page piece by Edward Wong, which talks about the No Losar movement and the security crackdown on Tibetans by the Chinese government during Tibetan New Year. Wong’s piece is incredibly well written and it does a great job of showing the committed defiance of Tibetans inside Tibet. I agree with Lhadon and Tendor that this is one of the best recent articles on Tibet.

An informal grass-roots boycott is under way. Tibetans are forsaking dancing and dinner parties for vigils with yak-butter candles and the chanting of prayers. The Losar campaign signifies the discontent that many of China’s six million Tibetans still feel toward domination by the ethnic Han Chinese. They are resisting pressure by Chinese officials to celebrate and forget.

“It’s a conscious awakening of an entire people,” said Woeser, a popular Tibetan blogger.

…

Nevertheless, the monks have put photographs of the Dalai Lama back up in prayer halls and in their bedrooms. One monk held up an amulet of the Dalai Lama dangling from his neck.

“The Chinese say this is all one country,” he said. “What do we think? You don’t know what’s in our hearts. They don’t know what’s in our hearts.” The monk tapped his chest. …

To try to maintain calm in the monastery, government officials meet regularly with a council of eight older monks. In early February, they had a frank discussion with the council, a senior monk said.

“They said they don’t want any trouble from us,” he said. “They said they punished us last year by putting us in jail. This year, the punishment will be this — ” The monk held up a thumb and index finger in the shape of a pistol.

Both the Wong piece and Woeser’s recent writing on Tibet do more to correct the incorrect notion that the No Losar Movement started by Tibetan’s in exile. In reality, it originated in Tibet and spread outward. The coverage surrounding the movement is a testament to the power it has had.  The Western press, other than during the nationanl uprising last year and during the Olympics, hasn’t shown a tremendous interest in covering Tibet nor the Chinese government crackdown against Tibetans’ pursuit of rights and freedom. The No Losar movement has changed that in a big way.

High Peaks Pure Earth has translated a blog post by Tibet’s most famous and influential blogger, Woeser, on the Losar moratorium as an active of civil disobedience by Tibetans inside Tibet. It’s titled, “I Took to the Streets, and What I Want is Freedom and Rights.” The whole post is worth a close reading, but I wanted to highlight this passage, as it speaks to the power of the No Losar movement inside of Tibet.

Various state media have attributed this “Not celebrating Losar” to the Tibetan Government in Exile and the Tibetan Youth Congress. In reality, “Not celebrating Losar” was first proposed by Tibetans in Tibet and originated out of spontaneous wishes. Nobody organized Tibetans “Not celebrating Losar”; nobody called on Tibetans “not to celebrate Losar”, no, no. However, the impact is tremendous, everyone is aware of this great ‘civil disobedience’ all over Tibet.

Some say that this kind of “civil disobedience” is only at a low-level, that it is merely not celebrating and nothing more. They maintain that it is a safe action which ends on the individual level, is short-term and does not entail much great risk. In fact, this is not true. Over the past year, the military might all over Tibet has been so great that all Tibetan areas have become prison-like. In today when you could even be arrested for listening to music, “not to celebrate Losar” has been regarded as a serious “separatist” activity, so much so that some Tibetans have been accused of spreading “not to celebrate Losar” rumours and been arrested. In fact, ‘civil disobedience’ in Tibetan areas is even more difficult to carry out than in other places, therefore any kind of result obtained is worth paying attention to.

This is protest, protest for Tibetan rights and freedom. It is done by Tibetans who know fully well that not celebrating or talking to their friends and family about not celebrating Losar could land them in prison or worse.

Woeser goes on to tell stories of how Tibetans have found hope through coming together to speak out for their rights. She identifies and writes in honor of the undying Tibetan pursuit of freedom in the face of inhuman treatment by the Chinese government lasting more than half a century. Read Woeser’s full post here.

Lhadon Tethong, reporting from Hong Kong, and Tenzin Dorjee talk about the latest news from inside Tibet and Western media coverage of China’s military buildup inside Tibet to stop any protests for freedom. Additionally, the video focuses on photos that have just come out through the Free Tibet Campaign from Labrang of massive Chinese military, paramilitary, and police presence in the streets and outside monasteries. The photos are powerful and show the visibile presence of an occupation force on the streets intimidating Tibetans.

Another installment of Lhadon Tethong and Tenzin Dorjee of Students for a Free Tibet, speaking about the latest news from inside Tibet and the coverage Western media outlets are doing of the crackdown inside Tibet. Also, Lhadon and Tendor talk about recent news coming out from inside Tibet through anonymous sources.

Adding to the growing Western media coverage of China’s crackdown in Tibet and the push inside Tibet for a moratorium on Losar celebrations, the Los Angeles Times has a story on what’s going on. Included in it is this gem about the Chinese government and government institutions forcing Tibetans to celebrate Losar:

At Beijing’s Central University for Nationalities, Tibetan students who had applied last year for permission to hold a Losar celebration informed the university recently that they wished to cancel. But the university told them that the party must go on, said a university source who asked not to be quoted by name.

“Celebrating is compulsory,” he said.

Yes, Tibetans will “celebrate” and all will be well. The Chinese government should really keep telling itself that.

This passage also stood out:

Reports say that as many as 20,000 additional soldiers and paramilitary troops have been deployed in Tibetan areas and that in Qinghai province, village leaders were threatened with arrest if they urged people not to celebrate the holiday.

By comparison, the US is engaged in an active war in Afghanistan. President Obama recently announced the deployment of an additional 12-17,000 US troops to Afghanistan. The Chinese government, on the other hand, is using their military to stifle dissent while maintaining an occupation of Tibet

Rebecca Novick of the Huffington Post has a very good report on what’s been going on inside of Tibet the last month, especially on the push to not celebrate Losar and instead be in mourning for the victims of China’s crackdown following the national uprising last year.

Simon Elegant has a more detailed piece on his recent travel to Tibet in Time. The piece begins with a testimony on Chinese surveillance and Tibetan defiance:

When asked how his New Year celebrations have been, the pilgrim — a middle-aged businessman wearing a heavy winter coat against the bitter winds that knife through the monastery’s narrow alleys — immediately glances up and then over his shoulder. It is the universal, instinctive reaction of Tibetans I talked to on a recent trip to China’s far western province of Qinghai, where ethnic Tibetans make up the majority of the population in the areas closest to the Qinghai-Tibet border. “Cameras,” he hisses, nodding upward. “The police have them everywhere.”

Pulling me into the shadow of one of the deep doorways cut into the monastery’s thick walls, he launches into a tirade that reflects the feelings of most of the Tibetans I spoke to in the region, a group ranging from nomadic herdsmen to shopkeepers to students to monks. “We didn’t celebrate anything this year, because we have nothing to celebrate,” he says grimly. “We want to respect and commemorate the people who were killed last year,” when demonstrations against Chinese rule in Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, which neighbors Qinghai, turned violent. Beijing says 19 were killed, mostly innocent Chinese shopkeepers. Tibet’s government in exile, led by its spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, put the number at more than 200, mostly Tibetans. This businessman, like many of his compatriots, passionately insists that the real number is in the thousands. “We are a people living under the gun. They tried to make us celebrate the New Year, but we refused. They jail us if we display pictures of the Dalai Lama. They even force our children to study only in Chinese at school,” he tells me. “But we will never forget we are Tibetans and will always have the Dalai Lama in our hearts.”

Additionally Elegant interviews a Tibetan nomad who speaks to the extent that the Chinese government is cracking down on the boycott of Losar (Tibetan New Year) by Tibetans.

Not surprisingly, the boycott has apparently angered Chinese authorities, who sources in exile allege have been engaged in a security crackdown code named Strike Hard since Jan. 18 in an attempt to head off trouble. “They have conducted house-to-house searches. They have military in plain clothes everywhere and snipers on the roofs,” says Tsewang Rigzin, president of the Tibetan Youth Council based in Dharamsala, India. According to one nomadic herdsman I meet at the Longwu monastery in Tongren, one of the most important outside the Tibet Autonomous Region, the attempt by the authorities to force celebrations — and the Tibetan resistance that has followed — has extended even into some remote areas. The 53-year-old, dressed in a traditional fleece-lined long coat and fingering his prayer beads, recounts how security forces came in January to his village in neighboring Gansu province and tried to enforce celebrations through a system of collective responsibility. “Ten days before New Year, the police came and divided us into groups of 20 families and put one or two people in charge. They were given a few thousand yuan and told they were responsible, that they would be punished if there were no celebrations,” he explains. “Later they came and arrested nine people who they said were ringleaders in the refusal campaign, even though they had nothing to do with it.”

This testimony goes along the New York Times report of the Chinese government trying to pay Tibetans to celebrate Losar and cracking down on those who have refused.