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Over the past few months a string of self-immolations in Tibetan regions of China have made headlines. Tibetan monks and nuns have set themselves on fire, protesting the Chinese regime's hard line policies. Commentators say these self-immolations emphasize genuine problems of religious suppression by the Chinese regime.

Since March, nine Tibetan Buddhist monks and two nuns in Tibetan areas of Qinghai Province set themselves on fire in protest of the Chinese regime's occupation and policies in Tibet. On his recent trip to Japan, the Dalai Lama described it as "a sign of deep desperation."

2008 saw the largest unrest in Tibet since the 1959 Tibetan uprising. Since then, the Chinese regime has been taking increasingly hard-line policies to control the region.

[Zhang Weiguo, Journalist]:
"The Communist Party is taking the brainwashing techniques it used to use on the masses in China in the past, and using them on the Tibetan people and on Tibetan lamas. Their method is to hold [political] study classes for the lamas, even confining them to the temple, not allowing them to come into contact with society, or even more strict methods. Some who didn't comply with the local authorities were arrested. If this kind of high pressure continues, it will make the Tibetan people feel a kind of hopelessness they haven't felt before."

Editor of Beijing Spring magazine Hu Ping says the Chinese regime's control over religion might seem more relaxed on the surface, but it's actually as severe as it's ever been.