BEIJING - Security forces have locked down the area surrounding a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in southwest China, a day after a young monk burned himself to death calling for the return of the region's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, a Tibetan rights group said.
Armed police surrounded the Nyitso monastery where the monk's body was taken in the Kardze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, a heavily ethnic Tibetan part of Sichuan province that borders Tibet, the International Campaign for Tibet said in a statement.Thousands of ethnically Tibetan residents attempted to enter the monastery but were blocked by police at the gates, the Washington-based Tibetan advocacy group said, citing exiled Tibetan sources. Those who could not go past the armed police prayed outside.
The immolation, the third by a Tibetan since 2009, was carried out on Monday by a 29-year-old monk, Tsewang Norbu, who was from a monastery in Tawu, about 150 km (93 miles) from where the last immolation happened in March.
