Chinese court convicts two Tibetans for 'encouraging self-immolation'

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Court hands down harsh sentences to Lorang Koncho and Lorang Tsering for 'encouraging eight people to self-immolate'
Kirti monastery
Lorang Konchok is a monk in Kirti monastery, which has been associated with almost one in five Tibetan self-immolations since early 2009. Photograph: Gillian Wong/AP

Two Tibetan men in western China have received harsh sentences for encouraging other Tibetans to self-immolate, becoming the first people to be charged with "intentional homicide" in connection with the increasingly common form of protest against Chinese rule.

A court in Sichuan province's Aba prefecture handed 40-year-old Lorang Konchok a death sentence with a two-year reprieve, a sentence which is frequently commuted to life imprisonment, China's official newswire Xinhua reported. His 31-year-old nephew, Lorang Tsering, was sentenced to 10 years in jail.

Chinese authorities have responded to a spike in self-immolations since the autumn by bolstering security in volatile Tibetan regions. They have only recently begun to treat abetting self-immolation as a criminal offence.

Lorang Konchok, a monk in Kirti monastery, was "stripped of his political rights for life", and his nephew was "stripped of his political rights for three years", Xinhua said without providing further details. Kirti has been associated with almost one in five Tibetan self-immolations since early 2009.

Over the past two years, at least 99 people from Tibetan areas of China have set themselves on fire, and most have died from their injuries. The wave of self-immolations shows no signs of slowing down. At least 80 have occurred in the past year, and at least three within the past three weeks.

Self-immolators represent a broad swath of the Tibetan demographic - while most have been monks and nuns, others were artists, farmers and high school students. Many shouted slogans calling for Tibetan independence and the return of the Dalai Lama, before setting themselves ablaze.

Xinhua said that Lorang and his nephew encouraged eight people to self-immolate, three of whom burned themselves to death last year. The other five were stopped by police or abandoned their plans.

It added that Lorang provided information to a member of a "Kirti monastery media liaison team" named Samtan. "The information was used by some overseas media as a basis for creating secessionist propaganda," it said.

More sentences could be forthcoming. Police in Tongren county of Qinghai province arrested a 27-year-old man last Thursday for encouraging a monk to set himself on fire, and police in neighbouring Gansu province apprehended seven people earlier this month for similar reasons.