Tibetans living in McLeod Ganj, India, hold a vigil for two women in Tibet who died by self-immolation over the weekend. (AFP/Getty Images / March 9, 2012)

More than two dozen Tibetans protesting Chinese repression have set themselves on fire in the last year. The government in Beijing portrays them as societal misfits.
By Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times
March 10, 2012
Reporting from Beijing—

During the winter break from high school, Tsering Kyi would spend her days tending the yak and sheep, always taking a book with her out to pasture. One of the few literate members of her family, bilingual in Chinese and Tibetan, her ambitions went far beyond those of her nomad parents.

"I want to do something for the Tibetan people," the 20-year-old student from Maqu, in Gansu province, confided to an aunt last month.

A week ago, Tsering Kyi went into a public toilet at the vegetable market near her high school. She took off her chuba, a traditional Tibetan coat, and wrapped herself in a quilt and tied it on tightly with wire. Then she doused herself with gasoline and emerged in flames before the shocked vendors.

Tsering Kyi was the 24th Tibetan to die by self-immolation in the last year, a trend that has unnerved the Chinese government and infused the Tibetan independence movement with fresh energy.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-china-tibet-immolate-20120310,0,3895376.story