The burning image of Thích Quảng Đức, a Vietnamese monk who self-immolated at a busy Saigon road intersection on June 11, 1963. Đức was protesting the persecution of Buddhists by South Vietnam's Roman Catholic government.

DHARAMSHALA, February 17: In a powerful message of solidarity, Vietnam’s Supreme Buddhist Patriarch, currently held under house arrest, expressed his support for the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan people’s struggle for freedom.

The Most Venerable Thich Quang Do, Patriarch of the outlawed Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, in a letter dated February 11 called the ongoing human rights violation in Tibet and the recent wave of self-immolations by Tibetans, a “challenge to all humanity”.