A Buddhist monk has set himself on fire in what is believed to have been a protest for Tibetan independence, the BBC said on February 9.
The immolation follows a series of pro-independence protests in Sichuan, an ethnically Tibetan region of southwest China, which is outside of the Tibetan autonomous region.
The incident was said to be the 20th self-immolation by Tibetan Buddhists since 2011.
Self immolation became a symbol of national liberation protest after the 1963 immolation of Thich Quang Duc, a Vietnamese hermit in the Mahayana tradition, who is now revered as a Boddhisatva (a Buddhistsaint) in Vietnam.
Duc’s death was the one of the key events leading up to a coup in the same year, which overthrew the US backed Ngo Dinh Diem regime, and the last relics of French colonial rule in Vietnam.