Recently Chinese police have sent co-investigation request to police authorities in related countries concerning a 32-year-old man who instigated a self-immolation incident in which two teenage boys died, according to Xinhua on Mar. 18, 2013.

According to relevant evidence, Tenpa Gyatso, Rinchen Tseli's 32-year-old uncle, inculcated the idea of "Tibet independence" upon his nephew, described self-immolation as "a beautiful thing" and asked him whether he would dare self-immolate.

"The Indian side will carve your name on the Monument to Self-immolators in Takla Sala and pray for you. You will become an extraordinary man," Tenpa Gyatso encouraged Rinchen Tseli, who finally set himself ablaze with an urge to be "extraordinary".

It also reminds us the tragedy which devours lives of two Tibetan boys, Rinchen Tseli, 15, and Sonam Dakyi, 16, who self-immolated on Feb. 19 and died at the scene in Jamcha Village, Ruoergai County, in the Tibetan-Qiang Autonomous Prefecture of Aba of southwest China's Sichuan Province.

One survivor who abandoned this crazy idea before action recalled that he was not until the last minute when he felt the great fear and stopped.

Children should be protected, agreed by international consensus

It has been widely acknowledged that adolescence is the transitive period between childhood and manhood, during which teenagers have passions, energy and emotion, but impulsive, which is why they should be paid much more special cares compared with those of other ages.

And as for the minors under the age of 18, the Convention on Rights of the Child, which has been widely accepted by over 190 countries, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations all have proclaimed that childhood is entitled to special care and assistance, to protect them from cruel and inhuman behaviors.

In the past decades the international community has been trying to optimize the growing environment of children. For example mature movie classification systems have been implemented in many countries, so that the under-18s are unable to see those violent and brutal scenes in cinemas.

Further more, when some emergencies bringing fear, pain and shocks, such as natural disasters or school shootings, occur, the corresponding psychological counseling and intervention would be conducted timely to provide maximum protection against the possible psychological shadows for the under-18s being involved in those inhuman scenes.

Young self-immolation victims need more care to fight against instigation

The case of Tibetan teenagers' self-immolation caused by adult's instigation tramples on the international efforts focusing on children's rights protection.

According to VOA's report on Apr, 2012, Tibetan children in school in Dharamsala are shown pictures of self-immolators and forced to participate funeral. These adults who carried out the so-call "patriotic education" clearly know the fact that "in the Western context these images are not allowed to be shown to kids at all." And surely these pictures would bring shadow to the kids: "Some children are asking, 'Oh teacher, will we have to do like this?'", according to VOA. 

When the Convention on Rights of the Child mentioned above calls for the promotion of his or her social, spiritual and moral well-being and physical and mental health through mass media, when the United Nations declares that children should be educated with the spirit of understanding, friendship, peace and universal love, it is in the school run by the 14th Dalai Lama, a religious leader and a Nobel peace prize winner to teach young Tibetan students self-immolation and the blood of the young victims in on his hands.

If this can be tolerated, what cannot?

Children are the future of the country and all ethnic groups. The world couldn't help doubting the capability of the so-called "Tibetan government-in-exile" to bring children up in Dharamsala, rather than taking them as the political chip of someone's political goal which cost many lives already.

No matter what kind of excuse is used, children should be kept away from self-immolation; after all, they are the future and hope.