Reuters
March 6, 2009

Beijing - A Tibetan monk who set himself on fire in protest during a prayer festival in western China last week is out of danger and recovering in hospital, Xinhua news agency said on Thursday, citing medical staff.

The monk started the blaze after walking out of a monastery in Aba county, an ethnic Tibetan area in Sichuan province, carrying a Tibetan flag with a picture of the exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, Free Tibet Campaign, an activist group, said last week.

A spokesman for the group citing unidentified sources said the monk was taken to a van and driven away after falling to the ground after gun shots were heard.

The monk, a 24-year-old student at the Kirti monastery had been treated for burns to more than half his body, Xinhua said.

"He came back to life after 12 hours' treatment ... He is out of danger now," Xinhua quoted Shen Yongcai, a physician at the Aba hospital, as saying.

The agency said a monk at the same monastery had confessed that he had "made up and spread rumours" that police had shot the student after he set himself on fire to "create greater disturbances so as to attract the attention from overseas".

Next month marks the sensitive 50th anniversary of the exile of the Dalai Lama, following a failed insurrection against China, which has prompted authorities to bolster security and restrict travel to ethnic Tibetan areas.