Tibetan activist dies after self-immolation near UN headquarters in Manhattan

Lobga Rangzen died after setting himself on fire near United Nations headquarters in Manhattan.

Activists identified the 52-year-old Queens resident as Lobga Rangzen. He carried a Tibetan flag and used his final appeal to call for Tibetan independence and unity.

New York City police received an emergency call around 6:30 p.m. Thursday and found a man badly burned near the UN complex. Officers took him to Bellevue Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Activists and Voice of Tibet identified him as Rangzen. He said Beijing’s policies were “destroying the Tibetan people.”

Rangzen had lived in the United States for about two decades and worked as an Uber driver. A fellow driver, Lobsang Paljor, knew Rangzen from Tibetan community gatherings and said Rangzen was angered by Chinese restrictions on Tibetans, including pressure to learn Mandarin and read Chinese-language literature. Police also recovered leaflets or signage at the scene reading “CHINA OUT OF TIBET.”

The protest came amid a long history of Tibetan anger over Chinese rule, which began after the 1950 takeover and intensified after the 1959 uprising, when Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, fled into exile in India. Tibetan exile groups say self-immolation has become a recurring form of protest. Free Tibet counts more than 150 people who have self-immolated inside Tibet since March 2009, with the wave peaking in 2012. The International Campaign for Tibet counts 10 self-immolations by Tibetans in exile outside Tibet and China.

China’s new ethnic unity law went into effect this week and has drawn concern in the United States and the European Union. Tibetans in exile say the law gives Beijing a legal basis to extend control beyond its borders while also tightening pressure on language, identity and political expression. The United Nations had not immediately commented on the incident.