A man carrying a Tibetan flag has died after burning it outside the UN Political Affairs

A man described by campaigners as a ‘tireless advocate for Tibet’ was pronounced dead on arrival at hospital.

A man died after setting himself on fire while carrying a Tibetan flag outside the United Nations headquarters in New York, police said.

The New York Police Department said on Thursday that law enforcement officers who responded to an emergency call at around 6:30pm local time (22:30 GMT) found a 52-year-old man with severe burns to his body.

The man was taken to hospital where he was pronounced dead, police said, adding that an investigation was ongoing.

The spokesman for the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, told AFP reporters: “We are saddened by this tragic and terrible event, and we offer our condolences to his family.”

US journalists and a Tibetan activist said the man was a Tibetan activist. Police have not confirmed the allegations or given any motive.

Tencho Gyatso, president of the International Campaign for Tibet, identified the dead man as Lobga Rangzen.

“Lobga was a tireless advocate for Tibet who was dedicated to raising awareness of the human rights crisis in Tibet,” Gyatso said in a statement to AFP.

Gyatso said Rangzen had criticized China’s innovation “An Act to Promote Ethnic Unity and Progress” which Beijing said it wanted to create “shared” race among the tribes.

Campaigners abroad say it will also undermine the rights of ethnic minorities, such as Uighurs and Tibetans, whom Beijing has been accused of persecuting.

The United States and the European Union have also expressed concern over the new law, which gives Beijing a legal basis dealing with people outside its borders.

There have been more than 150 suicides by Tibetans between 2009 and 2022, according to the International Campaign for Tibet.

Beijing in 1950 sent troops to Tibet, a high-altitude area that has been an important part of China for more than seven centuries.

International human rights groups and those in exile have regularly criticized what they call China’s repressive regime in Tibetan areas – which China denies.

The 90-year-old Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, has been living in India since fleeing the Tibetan capital Lhasa after Chinese troops quelled the uprising in 1959.

China does not recognize the government-in-exile in Tibet, the Central Tibetan Administration, and has not held talks with representatives of the Dalai Lama since 2010.

The Dalai Lama’s long-term policy of the “Middle Way” aims to self-govern and “resolve the Sino-Tibet conflict through non-reconciliation, dialogue and mutual benefit”.