Melody in Prison: Ngawang Choephel
	UPDATE 15 October 1998

The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD), located in Dharamsala, India, has announced that nine United States senators have petitioned Chinese authorities to grant a visa to Sonam Dekyi to visit her son, Ngawang Choephel. The letter was sent on October 6, 1998, to Ambassador Li, China's representative in Washington, DC.

"We believe granting Ms. Dekyi permission to travel to Tibet to visit her son would further illustrate the Chinese Government's commitment to upholding and strengthening the rule of law. Article 48 of Chinese Prison Law provides for visits from relatives," states the letter. It was signed by Senators Patrick Leahy, James M. Jeffords, Robert J. Kerrey, Craig Thomas, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Jesse Helms, Richard Durbin, Robert G. Torricelli and Paul Wellstone. Senators Leahy and Jeffords are from Vermont, where Ngawang Choephel studied ethnomusicology as a Fulbright scholar at Middlebury College until a few months before his arrest.

On June 10, 1997, the US House of Representatives also passed a resolution calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Ngawang Choephel.

Sonam Dekyi has been campaigning for her son's release since he was first reported missing in Tibet in September 1995. She has made several unsuccessful attempts to obtain a visa from the Chinese Embassy in New Delhi for the last two years. Over 15,000 signatures across the globe, collected by TCHRD, were submitted to the Chinese Embassy but Chinese authorities have yet to respond to the appeals. The tour to the United States is an attempt to urge the Chinese authorities to allow her to see her son.

"The campaign is garnering considerable support both from the leaders and public in the United States. I am hopeful that the Chinese leaderships will pay attention to the strong public sympathy for the ailing mother of Ngawang Choephel," commented Ms. Tsering Norzom when asked of the public support in the US. The tour, which will move from the US East Coast on to Europe, is co-sponsored by TCHRD, Free Tibet Campaign-UK, and International Campaign for Tibet.