The heightened security presence visible in the pictures is indicative of China’s more systematic and aggressive response to the Tibetan self-immolations, a response that ignores the root causes of the self-immolations and, since the end of 2012, has included the criminalization of the self-immolations and retributive actions against families, relatives, or monasteries associated with Tibetans who have self-immolated. Other images also disseminated on Tibetan social media sites from Amdo show Tibetan students and writers gathered … Continue reading Thousands of Tibetan pilgrims face troops at religious ceremonies in eastern Tibet