Melody in Prison: Ngawang Choephel
	UPDATE 25 February 2000

The U.S. Department of State has released its annual reports on human rights practices around the world. Its report on China notes what while economic conditions improved for many, "The Government's poor human rights record deteriorated markedly throughout the year, as the Government intensified efforts to supress dissent, particularly organized dissent." The crackdown against pro-democracy advocates, begun in 1998, has resulted in the detention or imprisonment of almost all key leaders of the China Democracy Party, and tens of thousands of Falun Gong supporters have also been detained or imprisoned, sentenced to "reeducation through labor" or, in many cases, incarcerated in psychiatric institutions.

The Government continued to commit widespread and well-documented human rights abuses, in violation of internationally accepted norms. These abuses stemmed from the authorities' extremely limited tolerance of public dissent aimed at the Government, fear of unrest, and the limited scope or inadequate implementation of laws protecting basic freedoms. The Constitution and laws provide for fundamental human rights; however, these protections often are ignored in practice. Abuses included instances of extrajudicial killings, torture and mistreatment of prisoners, forced confessions, arbitrary arrest and detention, lengthy incommunicado detention, and denial of due process. Prison conditions at most facilities remained harsh. In many cases, particularly in sensitive political cases, the judicial system denies criminal defendants basic legal safeguards and due process because authorities attach higher priority to maintaining public order and suppressing political opposition than to enforcing legal norms. The Government infringed on citizens' privacy rights. The Government tightened restrictions on freedom of speech and of the press, and increased controls on the Internet; self-censorship by journalists also increased. The Government severely restricted freedom of assembly, and continued to restrict freedom of association. The Government continued to restrict freedom of religion, and intensified controls on some unregistered churches. The Government continued to restrict freedom of movement. The Government does not permit independent domestic nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to monitor publicly human rights conditions. Violence against women, including coercive family planning practices—which sometimes include forced abortion and forced sterilization; prostitution; discrimination against women; trafficking in women and children; abuse of children; and discrimination against the disabled and minorities are all problems. The Government continued to restrict tightly worker rights, and forced labor in prison facilities remains a serious problem. Child labor persists. Particularly serious human rights abuses persisted in some minority areas, especially in Tibet and Xinjiang, where restrictions on religion and other fundamental freedoms intensified.

Nevertheless, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, briefing reporters on the report, dismissed the argument that the United States should respond to Chinese abuses by denying China the permanent normal trade relations which it seeks. She is quoted by Reuters news agency as saying: "We will continue to speak out on behalf of those in China who are systematically denied basic political and religious freedoms ... but we also see greater prospects for progress by pursuing our interests through our ties with China than by cutting those ties.''

John Ackerly, president of the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT), commented: "This report provides ample evidence of why the Administration should abandon its effort to secure permanent normal trade status with China and keep its annual review process. Abandoning the effort to secure permanent NTR [normal trade relations] would show to Europe and the rest of the world that the U.S. is consistent in its stated commitment to censure China at the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva."

A press release by ICT noted: "Thirteen pages of considered reporting by the State Department is a marked improvement from years past. However, the report continues to contain a number of defeciencies and relies heavily on NGO reporting, reflecting poor first-hand intelligence-gathering abilities. Nevertheless, this year, the report provided significantly more detail about human rights abuses to Tibetans throughout Tibetan areas, not just in the Tibet Autonomous Region.

"According to the report, systematic abuses occurred this year against Tibetan Buddhism, including gross interference by government authorities in monasteries, and on many religious practices. The government also 'downgraded use of Tibetan in education,' and purged so-called 'separatist materials' and certain historic and religious texts in schools."

The ICT press release goes on to highlight the most egregious violations of Tibetan human rights reported by the State Department:

• the lack of information about the 11th Panchen Lama who in 1999 is presumed to have entered into a 4th year of detention.:-- "The Government denied press reports in November that Gendun Choekyi Nyima died and was cremated secretly; however, the Government continues to refuse international observers the access necessary to confirm his well-being";

• the escalation of reincarnation politics on the part of Beijing:-- "Agya Rinpoche, former abbot of Kumbum monastery in Qinghai province, senior Tibetan religious figure, and an official at the deputy minister level, left China in November 1998 due to differences with the Chinese authorities... including, a heightened role demanded of him by the Government in its campaign to legitimize Gyaltsen Norbu" [the Chinese-appointed Panchen Lama];

• Chadrel Rinpoche, who was accused of betraying state secrets while helping the Dalai Lama choose the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, has been held in a secret compound since his 1997 sentence;

• "In late December, the 14-year old Karmapa Lama left Tibet secretly, reportedly to seek religious teaching in India."

• according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, 2,903 Tibetans fled to exile during the year;"

• "Ngawang Choephel, a Tibetan ethnomusicologist sentenced in 1996 to 18 years in prison on charges of espionage, was moved in 1998 from a detention center in Shigatse to the high security Powo Tramo prison, after the failure of his appeal of his sentence. In response to numerous inquiries by foreign officials, the Government acknowledged that Ngawang Choephel had developed symptoms of bronchitis, pulmonary infection, and hepatitis. His mother's repeated requests to be allowed to travel from India to China to visit him continue to go unanswered by the authorities, despite provisions in the law that allow for prisoner visits."

• Ngawang Sangdrol, a Tibetan nun first imprisoned at age 13, "has been beaten badly on several occasion because of repeated participation in protests at Drapchi prison .. Phuntsog Nyidrol, a Tibetan nun who reportedly tried to shield Ngawang Sangdrol from beatings" was herself beaten severely,

• female political prisoners "since 1987, have died at a rate of one in 22 while in prison" as a result of torture, beatings or other harsh treatment;

• "an orphanage that housed more than 60 Tibetan children in Lhasa was closed by local authorities ... and the children, ranging in age from 1 to 14 years, reportedly either were returned to their home prefectures, turned out into the streets, or placed in a local orphanage where conditions were reportedly extremely poor."

The State Department's conclusions regarding Chinese subsidies of large-scale Han civilian and military occupation accompanied by widespread looting and exploitation of natural and cultural resources, aimed at displacing and marginalizing (if not exterminating) the people of Tibet while eradicating Tibetan religion, language and culture, are a model of understatement and denial paralleled only by the blind eyes turned to the Nazi military build-up and destruction of European Jewry in the 1930s:

China's economic development policies, fueled in Tibet by central government subsidies, are modernizing parts of Tibetan society and changing traditional Tibetan ways of life. Although the Government has made efforts in recent years to restore some of the physical structures and other aspects of Tibetan Buddhism and Tibetan culture damaged or destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, repressive social and political controls continue to limit the fundamental freedoms of ethnic Tibetans and risk undermining Tibet's unique cultural, religious, and linguistic heritage.