A Tibetan activist died on Thursday after setting himself on fire outside the United Nations Headquarters in New York City, according to the New York City Police Department.
Police responded to an emergency call at around 6.30 p.m. ET on July 2 and found the man with severe burns, a police department spokesperson said in a statement to multiple news outlets.
The man, who was an Uber driver, was carrying a Tibetan flag during the incident. He was transported to Bellevue Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, according to the spokesperson.
Police are still investigating the incident and have not disclosed the man’s identity or potential motive for him to self-immolate.
The Tibetan National Congress of New York and New Jersey said in a July 3 statement posted to Instagram that the man was a 52-year-old Tibetan activist named Lobsang Palden, also known as Lobga Rangzen, who has “dedistatement that the man was a 52-year-old Tibetan activist named Lobsang Palden, also known as Lobga Rangzen, who had “dedicated his life to participating in peaceful, non-violent demonstrations to expose China’s human rights abuses in Tibet.”
The organization said Rangzen broadcast a livestream on Facebook before self-immolating near the U.N. headquarters, in which he called for Tibetan independence and spoke about the Chinese occupation of Tibet.
The activist attributed his actions to his commitment to Tibet and emphasized that they were not driven by any personal circumstances, the Tibetan National Congress added.
In his final message, he said: “I don’t want you to mourn for me, I want you to continue the struggle for Tibetan independence, because the lack of independence is the root of all our problems,” according to the Tibetan National Congress.
“We must recognize and remember that Lobga Rangzen committed this act for the political freedom of Tibet,” Jamyang Norbu, founder of the Tibetan National Congress, said in the statement.
“It is a tragedy that he passed away, but his commitment to the independence of Tibet will not be forgotten.”
The Epoch Times reached out to the United Nations for comment, but did not receive a response by publication time.
According to nonprofit group Free Tibet, more than 150 people have self-immolated inside Tibet since 2009 in protest against the Chinese occupation in 1950. Rangzen’s death marked the first known case of a Tibetan self-immolation in the United States, the Tibetan National Congress said.
Free Tibet said the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has intensified security forces’ activity in response to the protests, punishing protesters and their families. Some self-immolators who survived were detained, and their whereabouts remain unknown, according to the group.
During Human Rights Day in December 2022, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on two Chinese officials over their roles in the CCP’s human rights abuses in the Tibetan Autonomous Region.
The department said at the time that Tibetans have been subject to serious human rights abuses in the region, including ”arbitrary detention, extrajudicial killings, and physical abuse,” as part of the CCP’s efforts to “severely restrict religious freedoms.”
Reuters contributed to this report.
