Melody in Prison: Ngawang Choephel
	UPDATE 3 February 1998

The US State Department has released its annual China Country Report, dated January 30th, on Human Rights Practices for 1997. The report confirms the refusal by officials in the People's Republic of China (PRC) to disclose where Ngawang is being held. The State Department also reported that while a few prisoners have been granted early release or medical parole, "thousands of others, including Wang Dan, Liu Nianchun, Gao Yu, Pastor Xu Yongze, Bishop Zeng Jingmu, Chadrel Rinpoche, and Ngawang Choephel remained in prison for the peaceful expression of their political, social or religious views and/or 'counterrevolutionary' offenses despite official denials that China holds political prisoners."

While claiming that "positive steps in human rights" have been made, the State Department goes on to say that the government of the PRC

continued to commit widespread and well-documented human rights abuses, in violation of internationally accepted norms stemming from the authorities' very limited tolerance of public dissent, fear of unrest, and the limited scope or inadequate implementation of laws protecting basic freedoms. The Constitution and laws provide for fundamental human rights, but they are often ignored in practice. Abuses included torture and mistreatment of prisoners, forced confessions, and arbitrary arrest and lengthy incommunicado detention. Prison conditions at many facilities remained harsh. The Government continued tight restrictions on freedom of speech, the press, assembly, association, religion, privacy, and worker rights. Discrimination against women, minorities, and the disabled, violence against women, prostitution, trafficking in women and children, and the abuse of children remain problems. The Government continued to restrict tightly worker rights. Serious human rights abuses persisted in minority areas, including Tibet and Xinjiang, where tight controls on religion and other fundamental freedoms continued and, in some cases, intensified.

John Ackerley, president of International Campaign for Tibet, noted in a press release that the report "covers human rights conditions of less than half of the Tibetans living under Chinese rule today because it only covers Tibetans living in the 'Tibetan Autonomous Region.' Most of traditional Tibet is now carved up into Tibetan autonomous prefectures and counties under Chinese provinces, principally Qinghai, Sichuan and Gansu. Trends and abuses in those areas now fall between the cracks under the Department's reporting procedures.The separate Tibet section of the State Department report was mandated by Congress in 1994 as a reflection of its own determination that 'Tibet is an occupied sovereign country under international law and that its true representatives are the Dalai Lama and Tibetan Government in exile.'"