Melody in Prison: Ngawang Choephel
	UPDATE 16 July 1998

Ngawang is being held in Nyari detention center in Shigatse awaiting the result of an appeal of his conviction, according to a former prisoner, who is now living in exile after his release last year. The unidentified former inmate, a monk who was imprisoned in the same detention center after he returned to Tibet from India in the summer of 1996, was interviewed by the London-based Tibet Information Network. He reported that in December 1996, Ngawang was paraded through a market place in or near Shigatse with seven other political prisoners and 21 non-political inmates in a public display later shown on Chinese television. The sentences of Ngawang and the other prisoners were then read out in the market place, and later the seven other political prisoners were reportedly sent to Drapchi prison in Lhasa.

At that time, Ngawang was being held in a cell with one other prisoner, two cells away from the monk, who told TIN:

When I used to see him [in the Shigatse detention centre], Ngawang Choephel looked weak and dazed. He was not like other prisoners, who look mentally alert. Ngawang was interrogated in secret. Generally prisoners are tortured during their interrogation, but I cannot say if he was tortured or not. One day I spoke to him, although normally prisoners were not allowed to go near each other. I went to Ngawang to give him some newspapers, and told him not to lose heart and that he would probably be released soon. I told him to be happy, and he said, "yes, yes." That was all we said.

TIN adds that it is not known why Ngawang Choephel was kept in detention at Nyari, and comments, "It is unusual for a prisoner with such a long sentence and high public profile to remain in a prefectural Public Security Bureau detention center." According to TIN, the Nyari detention center "is a Chinese building just outside the village of Wutu near Shigatse. The number of prisoners kept in the 12 blocks of the prison is not known, although some sources state that many of the occupants are Tibetans held in the prison for trying to travel abroad, including some with legally valid Chinese travel documents."

Ngawang was first reported to be held in Shigatse in February 1996, when Dorji Rinchen, a Tibetan businessman imprisoned in the Nyari detention center from 14 August to 8 October 1995, heard of attempts to locate Ngawang and came forward to say that he had seen him there in September 1995. Since then, reports have also been received of Ngawang being held in Sangyip and Drapchi prisons. In December 1996, when the monk places Ngawang in Shigatse, he was reported to be held in solitary confinement in Sangyip Prison, near Lhasa.

Despite numerous inquiries by organizations and concerned individuals since Ngawang's disappearance in summer 1995, representatives of the People's Republic of China refused to disclose any information regarding Ngawang's location until May 1998, when they told a delegation visiting Tibet for the European Union that he was still in Shigatse. TIN reports:

The Chinese authorities confirmed to the delegation of EU ambassadors to Tibet in May that Ngawang Choephel had been tried on 6 September 1995 and sentenced on 13 November 1996 to 15 years on espionage charges and a further three years on charges of counter-revolutionary propaganda and incitement, a total sentence of 18 years. No details were given to the delegation about the secret information Ngawang Choephel allegedly collected, or about his appeal. Espionage is a charge that is now used widely in China to replace the earlier charge of counter-revolution, phased out under new legislation that came into effect on 1 October last year.

No information, official or unofficial, has yet been made public regarding Ngawang's health or general condition in the period of time since winter 1996-97.