(Free Tibet/Associated Press) - CORRECTS SPELLING OF THE NUN’S NAME AND ADD THAT SHE DIED ACCORDING TO FREE TIBET - In this undated photo released by Free Tibet on Sunday, Feb. 12, 2012, a Tibetan nun who the overseas activist group identified as Tenzin Choedon is shown at the Mamae Nunnery in Sichuan province’s Aba prefecture. Free Tibet said the 18-year-old nun set herself on fire and died Saturday in western China in the latest such protest against Beijing’s handling of the vast ethnic Tibetan regions it rules.

It said Choedon shouted slogans of protest against the Chinese government before setting herself on fire at a junction close to the nunnery.

“Soldiers and police came immediately and took her away,” Free Tibet said. “Soldiers then surrounded the nunnery and sealed it off.”

As many as 18 monks, nuns and ordinary Tibetans have set themselves on fire over the past year, and Free Tibet says at least 12 died from their injuries.

Activist groups say the self-immolations are a protest against China’s policies and a call for the return of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetans’ spiritual leader who fled from the Himalayan region to India amid an abortive uprising against Chinese rule in 1959. MORE>>>> http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/group-says-teenage...