Tibetan poet gives voice to dead protesters in new book

A blogger, a taxi driver, a Communist Party official and a Buddhist monk. All of them Tibetan, and all of them driven to the desperate step of setting themselves on fire in protest at Chinese rule.
These and dozens of others are the subject of a new booklet written by Tsering Woeser, a famous Tibetan poet, essayist and fierce critic of the Chinese government's rule over the sprawling Himalayan region.
"Immolations in Tibet: The shame of the world" -- which so far is only being published in French and will be released in Paris today -- is illustrated by Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei.

In it, Woeser -- who lives under surveillance in Beijing but has an extensive network of contacts in Tibetan areas -- tries to get to the root of why at least 120 Tibetans have set themselves alight in recent years, most in China but some outside the country. Many, but not all, have died.
"Hunger strikes are a method of protest universally accepted and respected, whilst self-immolation is often ignored, because such suffering goes beyond the limits of what most people can conceive, even in their imagination," she writes.
"Self-immolation is the most hard-hitting thing that these isolated protesters can do while still respecting principles of non-violence."

The first recorded self-immolation in China was in February 2009, but Tibetan areas have seen an explosion in this violent form of protest since March 2011 when a monk set himself on fire at the revered Kirti monastery and died, sparking riots.

Beijing has always strongly condemned the acts and blames them on exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama, saying he uses them to further a separatist agenda. It maintains that Chinese rule has brought development and riches to the plateau.
But Tibetans say the self-immolations are a response to increasing curbs on their religious and political freedoms, particularly since deadly 2008 riots in the Tibetan capital Lhasa that spread to neighbouring areas.

In the booklet, Woeser describes Tibetan regions as a "giant prison criss-crossed with armed soldiers and armoured vehicles".