Melody in Prison: Ngawang Choephel
	UPDATE 5 November 1998

The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) has just received confirmed reports that Ngawang Choephel has been in Drapchi Prison since late June 1998. He was transferred to Drapchi after being detained at Nyari Detention Center in Shigatse since August 1995. During his time at Nyari Detention Centre, it is reported that he had on various occasions appealed to the Higher People's Court in Lhasa, but all appeals were rejected. His transfer to Drapchi prison, a high-security prison in Lhasa housing the majority of Tibetan political prisoners, marks the end of his right to appeal.

On 27 June 1998, Ngawang was removed from the Detention Center and it was suspected that he had been taken to Lhasa. His transfer to Drapchi prison was later confirmed by a source who had been imprisoned with Ngawang at Nyari Detention Centre, and has recently arrived in India. Unconfirmed reports received in May of this year stated that Ngawang was suffering from ill health while in detainment.

The source also stated that Ngawang had been concerned about his mother's health and hoped to meet with her. Sonam Dekyi is currently in London with a representative from TCHRD, Tsering Norzom, and will be campaigning throughout Europe until mid-December to gain international support in requesting the Chinese authorities to grant her a visa to visit her son in Tibet, or to release him. Despite support for her cause expressed to the Chinese by politicians and Tibet support groups in the US and the UK, including a petition signed by 15,000 persons and a letter from nine US senators, there has been no response from Chinese authorities, who since 1996 have ignored all requests for information relating to Ngawang.

Upon being informed of Ngawang's transfer, Sonam Dekyi expressed the same fears felt by all who've heard stories of the notorious prison and reiterated the plea that she has been making for the past three years:

I am very worried that my son has been moved to Drapchi prison, especially as I have heard about the shootings and beatings of prisoners there after protests in May. I am desperately concerned about my son's health; he is innocent of any political crimes and he should be released immediately. For three years I have been trying to go to Tibet and visit my only son, but the Chinese Government will not help me. I appeal to them to have pity of me and allow me to go and see my son as soon as possible. I ask the British Government and all Western Governments to empathise with me and support my plea so that I can see my son before I die."

Drapchi Prison

The Tibet Autonomous Region Prison No. 1, called "Drapchi" after the neighborhood in the north-eastern outskirts of Lhasa where it is located, is the complex of buildings in the lower right-hand corner of the aerial view of Lhasa shown above. The largest prison in Tibet, it includes five blocks, each with 13 cells holding between 75 and 100 prisoners. Of these, according to the Tibet Support Group in London, approximately six are Chinese, the rest Tibetan. In 1989, a new block was built especially for political prisoners. In 1997, the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy reported that 253 political prisoners were held in Drapchi, out of 1,216 known to be detained in prisons and labor camps throughout Tibet, including 295 women and 39 juvenile political prisoners younger than 18. There were 85 political prisoners known to be serving sentences of ten years or higher. Officially, the prison holds 968 inmates, 78 percent of whom are Tibetan. The majority of these are Buddhist monks and nuns, including novices as young as 13, who have been both the main targets of the Chinese attempt to annihilate the Tibetan people and culture and the most visible and outspoken defenders of that culture. Because nuns have led more than 50 percent of demonstrations in Lhasa for Tibetan independence, they comprise a significant portion of the prison population.

PRC officials have said that "so-called political prisoners" account for 11 percent of those imprisoned in Tibet. As the US State Department has reported, "Government officials deny that China holds any political prisoners, asserting that authorities detain persons not for the political or religious views they hold, but because they violate the Criminal Law." A new Criminal Law, which went into effect in October 1997, replaced references to "counterrevolutionary offenses" with provisions against "treasonous acts designed to threaten national security." Thus numerous Tibetans have been arrested, imprisoned and tortured for such treasonous threats to national security as talking to foreigners, teaching the Tibetan language to children, possessing a photo of the Dalai Lama, or writing down the names of those injured or arrested in demonstrations.

Maltreatment, malnourishment, torture and death are endemic throughout Chinese prisons and "re-education through labor" camps in Tibet. According to the Tibetan Government in Exile, 173,221 Tibetans died between 1949 and 1979 after being tortured in Chinese prisons in Tibet. Drapchi has long been notorious for its abuses. Long interrogations and periods of solitary confinement, use of shackles and electric cattle prods, and rape of female prisoners are common. Kidney damage and loss of eyesight are the frequently reported results of beatings and poor prison conditions, as are illnesses caused by forced blood extractions, intensive exercise, and forced labor—which often includes being forced to collect human excrement for use as fertilizer without gloves.

As elsewhere in Tibet, attempts by prisoners in Drapchi to inform Westerners of their plight have been met by severe reprisals. In 1991, Amnesty International reports,

two prisoners who attempted to hand a petition to US diplomats visiting Drapchi prison were reportedly severely beaten and placed in solitary confinement. Five other prisoners who subsequently protested at the two prisoners' treatment were themselves beaten and had their hands and feet chained before being transferred to another prison. Sixteen prisoners, who in turn protested against the transfer, were also reportedly beaten and punished. One of them was Lobsang Tsondru, a monk aged in his seventies at the time.

Also in 1991, according to the Tibet Information Network (TIN),

Yeshe Ngawang, a 28-year old monk in Drapchi prison, received a nine-year extension to his five-year sentence after he was caught passing a letter about prison conditions to one of his relatives. According to a former prisoner in Drapchi, Ngawang was "tortured severely" after the incident, and his relatives were taken outside and beaten.

And the sentence of Tanak Jigme Zangpo was extended for eight years after he shouted "Free Tibet!" in Tibetan during a visit by a Swiss ambassador to Drapchi in 1991.

In 1994, the sentences of 14 nuns were doubled or tripled for "spreading counter-revolutionary propaganda" after Chinese authorities learned that they had smuggled a tape recorder into the prison to record pro-independence songs, which after circulating secretly in Tibet became available in the West as a CD entitled Seeing Nothing But the Sky. (Their lyrics are also available online.) The sentence of one of these nuns, Ngawang Sangdrol, was reportedly increased by six years for participating in the recording and later by another nine years after she did not stand up when an official entered her room, failed to tidy her bedding, and shouted "Free Tibet!" as a protest against the prison's Panchen Lama re-education campaign. First arrested at the age of 10 for participating in a pro-independence demonstration, detained for nine months beginning in August 1990, when she was 13, and beaten so severely that her hands were permanent damaged, she was again arrested in 1992 and sentenced to three years. As of May 1997, with the extensions to her original sentence, Ngawang Sangdrol was scheduled for release in 2010 at the age of 33.

In October 1997, according to TIN, three prisoners from Drapchi's unit 2, which is reserved for criminal offenders, were reportedly beaten until they were "not recognizable as the people they were," put into solitary confinement, and given 3-10 year sentence extensions following prison demonstrations during and after a visit to the prison by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. The first incident, involving a prisoner shouting "Long live the Dalai Lama!" in front of the UN delegates, was followed by a second disturbance after their departure, when prisoners protested the way in which prison officials "stage-managed" the visit to mislead members of the Group. The Chinese ambassador in Geneva later denied that any prisoners had been beaten or suffered any reprisals as a result of interviews by the Group. He wrote, "They are still serving their sentences in that prison, leading a normal life and enjoying the same treatment as other inmates." The UN Working Group was later criticized by human rights monitoring organizations for having formally stopped examining individual cases of detention in China more than a year before its visit, for omitting any reference to the Drapchi protests in its report, and for relying upon inmate translators, thereby jeopardizing the confidentiality of interviews and threatening the security of prisoners who participated in interviews.

In May of 1998, the European Union sent a Troika consisting of Beijing-based ambassadors from Britain, Austria and Luxembourg, to investigate the human rights situation in Tibet. Members of that delegation succeeded in remaining so oblivious to conditions and in swallowing so many lies told by Chinese authorities that, in this writer's opinion, they should resign in shame. With a straight face, the Report of the EU Troika Human Rights Mission to Tibet parroted the assurances of an official of the Regional Justice Bureau that

there was a special code of conduct for prison officers. If a prison officer offended against the prison law by insulting or beating a prisoner, he would be dealt with in accordance with the law. In Drapchi Prison the governor assured the delegation that he was satisfied with the way the Prison Law was enforced. He could assure the delegation that there had been no deaths in the prison from improper causes. There had been no cases of misbehaviour by prison warders. In addition the work of the Prison was closely supervised. The local Procuratorate had installed a complaints box for prisoners to make complaints if they wished, and the Legal Committee of the Regional People's Congress had conducted a number of thorough investigations in the Prison concerning the proper enforcement of the Prison Law.

The Bureau representative assured member of the Troika that "It was permitted to carry out normal personal religious activities in prison provided this did not offend against prison regulations." The EU Troika's report on their visit to Drapchi was as follows:

The delegation visited Drapchi Prison on 4 May. The main interest was the treatment of political prisoners. It was subsequently reported that there had been a major disturbance in the prison on 1 May. The delegation was not aware of these reports at the time of their visit to the prison. There had been some doubts raised by the Tibetan authorities [...] over the visit, but no explanation was given for these, and the delegation formed the impression that this was a negotiating tactic on the part of the Tibetan authorities. The delegation were also briefed, they felt unusually, in the open air outside the inner prison gates before the actual prison visit. Nonetheless, there were no visible signs of the after effects of a riot, and naturally the Prison authorities made no mention of any such incident. As far as could be ascertained the guarding was normal, with no obvious signs of extra guards or heightened security.

Drapchi Prison is a medium security prison. It holds about 800 prisoners. 75 per cent are Tibetan, 20 per cent Han Chinese and the rest from other minorities. Most of the prisoners were said to be illiterate coming from farming or animal husbandry backgrounds. The prison educated them and taught Tibetan and Chinese up to Middle School standard. The general regime was of five days work and two days rest. Of the five working days, three are spent in manual labour and two on study and politics.

The delegation was shown into one of four of five accommodation blocks. Conditions there were relatively comfortable, with 12 prisoners to a room each with single bunks. Accommodation was bare and basic but not too much unlike a Chinese barracks or even a student dormitory. There were no prisoners in the cell block at the time of the visit. The delegation were shown two classes of 30 or so prisoners taking place in the new looking educational block and one group of a dozen or so prisoners learning handicraft skills in a carpet workshop. No other prisoners were seen apart from a few in the cook house where there were pots of meat and vegetables apparently waiting for cooking, though the fires were cold. The delegation were not allowed to speak to those named prisoners to whom they had requested unsupervised access. Instead they were, after prompting, allowed to interview one prisoner in the corridor of the education block. He was clearly extremely ill at ease and was initially unwilling to answer any questions at all. He only did so once prison authorities had explicitly told him that he could answer and would come to no harm. His name was Tsering Pingcuo. He said he had been a novice monk, not yet fully qualified. He had been accused of crimes of endangering state security in that at the age of 19 he had shouted slogans in the centre of Lhasa and had waved a Tibetan flag. For this he had been sentenced to 13 years imprisonment. He appeared to be in reasonable health. He was clearly in an uncomfortable situation and the delegation did not seek to prolong their questioning of him.

The delegation were told that those sentenced for crimes against state security were not treated differently from other prisoners. There were about 90 such people in the prison. They shared the same cell blocks as other prisoners, and there were no special detention blocks for them. The number of such prisoners was decreasing and there had been no cases of a prisoner accused of this group of crimes returning to prison after release. In a separate discussion, a Vice President of the Higher People's Court said that nobody had been sentenced to death in Tibet for crimes of endangering state security.

All those prisoners whom the delegation saw seemed reasonably healthy. They were told that prisoners were divided into three categories according to their behaviour. Those in the top category were accorded special privileges, while those in the bottom had their privileges curtailed. Prisoners were able to earn around Y2,000 a year through their labour and through raising pigs and vegetables. Conduct and labour performance were reviewed monthly and marked up in complex charts on the prison wall. There was a system of remission for good behaviour, which was awarded at a review conducted twice a year. The full remission (of up to one third of sentence) was not usually given at any one time as that was said not to be conducive to smooth reeducation. Most inmates accepted the reform. The recidivism rate was low, only 3 per cent.

Not until May 1998 (with further details emerging as late as October) was it learned that on 1 and 4 May, Drapchi Prison had been the site of demonstrations followed by a bloodbath, with shootings causing at least 11 deaths of prisoners, and interrogations, torture and solitary confinement of survivors that no doubt continue to this day. TIN reports that the Chinese have taken extraordinary measures to silence news of these events, threatening prison officials and released prisoners with severe reprisals if they speak to people outside Drapchi about the protests and preventing doctors treating the wounded at the military hospital near Sera from leaving the hospital. For several weeks after the protests, routine work in the prison was halted, every single prisoner was subjected to an individual interrogation session, and normal permissions for relatives to visit prisoners were withheld.

On 1 May, which is International Labor Day and a national holiday in China, Drapchi prison officials held a flag-raising ceremony. TCHRD reports that on this occasion, a non-political Tibetan prisoner, Karma Dawa, led a demonstration that was joined other prisoners in shouting such slogans as "Long live the Dalai Lama" and "Foreigners out of Tibet!" Some of the 60 political prisoners who were present participated in the protest. The protest was apparently planned with cognizance of the impending EU Troika visit. Shots were fired by armed police to break up the demonstration and a number of prisoners were beaten. Prison officials were reportedly told that if news of the disturbance leaked out, they would lose their jobs. According to TIN, "Karma Dawa is said by some reports to have been executed within two weeks of the incident together with three criminal prisoners, although other sources indicate that he may have been shot during the protest."

On 4 May, the day of the visit by the EU Troika, it was initially—and incredibly—reported (by TCHRD on 21 May) that 80 Tibetan political prisoners from units 5 and 6 were involved in raising slogans and pasting posters around the prison calling for independence. Chinese authorities then opened fire to disperse the demonstrators. Reports of that event received in August were summarized by TIN as follows:

Prison officials had selected representatives from different units, including more than 60 monks, to a meeting when prisoners suddenly started shouting "Free Tibet" slogans. According to unconfirmed reports, political prisoners who were being held in cells nearby joined in with the shouting. Prison officials retaliated by beating political prisoners particularly severely; inmates involved were isolated from other prisoners in solitary confinement cells. Some prisoners, such as Khedrup, may have been sent to other prisons, including Outridu prison, because there were not enough solitary confinement cells at Drapchi.

A delegation from the European Democratic Union visiting Lhasa in August presented to Justice Bureau officials a list of names of those said to have died and was told that guards frightened by prisoners chanting slogans had fired guns into the air "to attract the attention of policemen outside the prison" but that no deaths had occurred. The governor of Drapchi Prison told them that "nothing had happened" in the prison on the dates in question, while the vice-governor admitted that "something had happened." In September, a group of Italian senators visiting Tibet was also denied information about the prisoner deaths, as was UN High Commissioner of Human Rights Mary Robinson. Robinson, who did not travel with a Tibetan interpreter, took the unprecedented step of deciding not to visit Drapchi for fear of the repercussions such a visit might have on the prisoners.

In October, TIN reported that, according to unconfirmed reports from Tibet, 11 prisoners—six nuns, four monks, and one layperson—were known to have died following the May demonstrations in Drapchi. Prison authorities claim that four of the nuns committed suicide on 7 June, despite the fact that they were reportedly being held in solitary confinement and had no contact with each other:

Several unconfirmed reports indicate that four nuns, 24-year old Choekyi Wangmo, 24-year old Tashi Lhamo, Dekyi Yangzom, 21, and Khedron Yonten, died on the same day, 7 June, more than a month after the demonstrations. The authorities said that Choekyi Wangmo, from Shar Bumpa nunnery in Phenpo, hanged herself, and a mark was reportedly visible on her neck after her death. Tashi Lhamo, Dekyi Yangzom and Khedron Yonten, who were all from Nyemo county 150 km west of Lhasa, suffocated themselves by stuffing their mouths with scarves, according to prison officials. The bodies of the nuns had no visible external injuries, but they were apparently bloated, which could indicate damage to the internal organs.

A fifth nun, Lobsang Wangmo, was also reported to have died as a result of beatings after the demonstrations. TIN speculates: "The nuns may have been singled out for particularly harsh treatment if they were thought to be ring-leaders of the prison protests."

Drapchi Prison officials also claimed that Lobsang Gelek, a 24-year-old monk from Khangmar monastery who had been imprisoned in 1995 for shouting pro-independence slogans in the Barkhor area of Lhasa, had committed suicide. According to unofficial sources, Gelek's father was given 700 RMB ($82) as a token of condolence for the death of his son.

In addition, TIN reports, two monks from Ganden monastery, Khedrub (age 26) and Ngawang Tenkyong (age 28), died after beatings following the 1 and 4 May protests. According to one unofficial source, after 4 May and prior to his death, 26-year old Khedrub was transferred from Drapchi to solitary confinement in a windowless cell in Outridu prison, a detention centre within the Sangyip prison complex in the north-east suburbs of Lhasa. His body was not returned to his family, and relatives are said to have been forced to fingerprint a certificate acknowledging that the cause of his death was suicide. Ngawang Tenkyong, who had been serving a 10-year sentence after taking part in a pro-independence demonstration in 1996,, died following severe beatings on 5 May. A fourth monk, Ngawang Tenzin, is said to have died on 7 June, the same day as the four nuns.

Prisoner Gyaltsen Choephel was severely beaten after he challenged official reports of the nuns' suicide and was recently released on medical parole, which indicates his condition may be serious. TIN also reports that Gyaltsen Choephel's mother was arrested, apparently for taking food to the prisoners. TIN notes that she was arrested in 1989 and served three years after organizing prayers for pro-independence demonstrators who died in Lhasa. Gyaltsen Choephel's father, brother and sister have also been imprisoned at various times for their expressions of resistance to Chinese rule in Tibet.

Ngawang Sangdrol is among the prisoners reported to have been beaten, interrogated and held in solitary confinement, and fears for her health and safety continue to be widespread. Other nuns subjected to such treatment include Ngawang Choezom, first sentenced to five years for taking part in a pro-independence demonstration and now serving 11 years because of her involvement with the recording, and Ngawang Tenzin (age 31), who is serving five years after being arrested in February 1995 following a protest in Lhasa,

TIN reports that there are also fears for the health and safety of 72-year-old Tanak Jigme Zangpo (mentioned above), a former teacher who has spent 28 years in prison and who was reportedly beaten and held in solitary confinement following the May protests. Chinese authorities have told Swiss officials, who have made several representations in his behalf over the past seven years, that he was suffering from "hypertension" and had been "excused from work duties" but that he was in "generally good health." He is currently scheduled for release in 2011.

In addition, TIN says, the current condition of Drepung monk Ngawang Sungrab, who was also severely beaten and may have been shot during the Drapchi protests, is not known. Ngawang Sungrab, who was serving a 10-year sentence for taking part in a pro-independence demonstration in Lhasa in 1991, had reportedly shouted pro-independence slogans during an earlier prison meeting in early April. This may have led to him being singled out during the May demonstrations.

Reflecting on reports from Drapchi, TIN comments:

These official denials on the subject of the ill-treatment of prisoners in recent incidents, combined with the severe reprisals for those accused of informing the outside world of such treatment, indicate the extent of official concern about continuing protests in Tibetan prisons. The severe punishments meted out in the recent Drapchi incidents also indicate that officials are not prepared to tolerate a situation in which criminal and political prisoners act together; the subsequent isolation of key political prisoners may be a method of breaking down what the authorities see as their increased influence within the prison...

Chinese authorities [...] have traditionally separated these two categories of inmates in different units of Drapchi prison due to fears that prisoners of conscience would influence criminals with political ideas. Male political prisoners are kept in the "fifth division," or unit, and female politicals held in the "third division," carefully segregated from criminal prisoners. The event in Drapchi shows the unity among political and other prisoners of Tibetan nationality with the common cause of a free Tibet.

At least we may be assured that Ngawang Choephel is in good company—if he and his fellow/sister prisoners survive.

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URGENT ACTION!

On 22 November, an Urgent Action Campaign was organized out of concern for Ngawang Sandrol and other political prisoners, especially nuns, whose lives and health are believed to be at serious risk as a result of the torture and conditions to which they've been subjected since the protests.