Glimpses of a Chinese Town Under Lockdown In the latest of a string of self-immolation protests against Chinese policies, a 19-year-old Tibetan monk set himself on fire on Monday in the rugged western Chinese town of Aba, the advocacy group Free Tibet said in an e-mailed statement. It was the second self-immolation by a Tibetan teenager in three days and the 23rd since last March, according to the group. Chinese security forces standing nearby quickly doused the flames before hauling the monk, Lobsang Gyatso, away from the scene, the group said. Neither the severity of his burns nor his current whereabouts were immediately known. His protest followed that of an 18-year-old nun, Tenzin Choedon, who died on Saturday after lighting herself on fire. The town of Aba, or Ngaba in Tibetan, and the wider area of the northwestern Sichuan province where it is located have been locked down for months by Chinese security forces who have thrown up a series of checkpoints along the roads leading into the area and prevented nearly all foreign journalists from entering, The Guardian's Jonathan Watts reported. The authorities have also blocked Internet and mobile phone communications, preventing the type of activist and citizen journalist reports that have allowed information to escape to other restive areas around the world. Despite the lockdown, some reporters managed to get inside the area to document the heavy security presence, especially on the streets of Aba, where many of the self-immolations by monks from the Kirti monastery have taken place. The first of the recent wave of self-immolations occurred in the town during the spring of 2009 to protest China's repression of Tibetan culture and religion. Mr. Watts from The Guardian was the latest to sneak inside, posting furtive video filmed from a moving car of the dense concentrations of security forces and barricades in the city. The video also captured fire trucks as well as security officers carrying fire extinguishers or batons. Mr. Watts reports that "the authorities are trying to extinguish dissent with fire trucks and riot police." According to his report: Aba has road blocks, spot checks and a security presence reminiscent of conflict zones in the Middle East or Northern Ireland. But the violence here is, for the most part, self-inflicted. And the battle is not for territory, but for hearts and minds and beliefs. Last October, a reporter from Agence France-Presse filmed similar scenes in Aba out the window of a moving car. That video included scenes of security officers in fatigues and riot gear patrolling in the streets as if the city were under occupation. The patrols also include officers carrying fire extinguishers.