TIN News Update / 9 August 2000 / no. of pages: 2
ISSN:1355-3313

Ngawang Choephel's mother was allowed to see her son last week for the first time in five years since he was sentenced to 18 years for "espionage" after he travelled to Tibet to video traditional music and dance. Sonam Dekyi and her brother Tsering Wangdu met 32-year old Ngawang Choephel, a former Fulbright scholar, under strict surveillance for two one-hour visits last week in Chengdu, the provincial capital of Sichuan. They were separated by metal bars and were not allowed any physical contact. Conversation was also limited due to the presence of security personnel, and Ngawang Choephel and his mother were told that if they did not stop crying, the visit would have to end.

Ngawang Choephel was transferred approximately a month ago from Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) Prison Number Two, also known as Powo Tramo, to the prison in Chengdu where he met his mother. Sonam Dekyi and Tsering Wangdu were told that the reason for his transfer to Chengdu was that he had required medical treatment. Ngawang Choephel had gone on hunger strike in Powo Tramo after officials there failed to provide medical care or check-ups. Medical facilities in Chengdu are more sophisticated than at Powo Tramo, which is in remote Pome county, Kongpo prefecture, 650 km east of Lhasa. Ngawang Choephel's move away from the Tibet Autonomous Region to a prison in mainland China may also indicate his political significance for the Chinese authorities and an intention by the authorities to keep him isolated from Tibetan political prisoners and to ensure the highest possible security for the visit of his mother and uncle. It is not known whether his relocation to Chengdu is permanent.

Ngawang Choephel looked physically frail and did not seem strong mentally, according to his mother and uncle, who arrived in Kathmandu yesterday (8 August) on their way back to India. "He was just skin and bones," his uncle, Tsering Wangdu, told TIN. "He said he was ill and that he had received treatment in hospital in Chengdu before our visit." Ngawang Choephel said that a doctor had told him he is suffering from liver, lung and stomach ailments, and possibly also an infection of the urinary tract. Previous reports indicated that he may be suffering from tuberculosis.

Sonam Dekyi was not able to speak to her son openly about possible maltreatment in prison due to the surveillance of the visit, but a prison official told Sonam Dekyi during her visit that Ngawang Choephel had been a "difficult" prisoner, who had failed to "confess his crimes" fully. This statement differs from earlier accounts by the authorities of Ngawang Choephel's detention. In February 1997, a report in the official Chinese news agency Xinhua confirming Ngawang Choephel's 18 year sentence stated that he had "confessed to his wrongdoing". A broadcast on Radio Tibet on 26 December 1996 stated that Ngawang Choephel had "confessed" to activities including "carrying out espionage activities" in order to "provide the information gathered to the Dalai clique's government in exile and to an organisation of a certain foreign country" (a reference to the USA, where Ngawang Choephel studied at Middlebury College in Vermont). The prison authorities regularly require prisoners to reiterate confessions and "accept their crime", or face punishment, which can be a particularly difficult process for political prisoners. Beatings are commonly used to secure confessions during interrogation, and as punishment during a prisoner's sentence, with the policy of "leniency to those who confess, severity to those who resist" stressed to all prisoners. It appears that Ngawang Choephel may have suffered from maltreatment at Nyari detention centre in Shigatse, where he was initially detained in 1995, but that the situation had improved at Powo Tramo.

The Chinese authorities ensured that Sonam Dekyi and her brother adhered to textbook Chinese prison visitation regulations during their stay in Chengdu in terms of the lack of physical contact, strict security, and time limit of one hour. A normal prison visit for political prisoners in the Tibet Autonomous Region, however, is now an exception rather than a rule. The families of political prisoners were reportedly not allowed to visit their relatives for approximately a year following the May 1998 pro-independence protests at Drapchi prison, and reliable reports from Tibet indicate that family visits to political prisoners in Drapchi generally last no more than ten minutes.

During their visit, Sonam Dekyi and Tsering Wangdu were not allowed to talk to Ngawang Choephel in Hindi; they were required to talk only in Tibetan so that prison officials could monitor their conversation. His visitors gained the impression that he was feeling isolated; there are likely to be few Tibetan prisoners in a Chengdu prison, and Ngawang Choephel does not speak Chinese. Ngawang Choephel and his mother were warned by prison guards on the first visit that if they did not stop crying, the visit would have to end.

Visa granted to Sonam Dekyi following international campaign

The Chinese Embassy in New Delhi had granted Sonam Dekyi a visa to visit China and Tibet for seven days following a high-profile international campaign by support groups worldwide and US politicians, notably Senator James Jeffords, who opposed making normal trade relations between the US and China permanent this year (known as Permanent Normal Trade Relations) because of concerns over Ngawang Choephel's imprisonment.

Sonam Dekyi and Tsering Wangdu were initially told that they would be spending seven days in Lhasa, and were not informed until their arrival in the capital of the TAR that they would be visiting Ngawang Choephel in Chengdu instead. They flew to Chengdu direct from Lhasa, without leaving the airport. Their departure for Lhasa was delayed by several days when they were detained on entry into Kathmandu by Nepalese immigration officials because they did not have the correct papers.

The Chinese authorities gave no confirmation of Ngawang Choephel's whereabouts in response to queries from Western governments until May 1999. Ngawang, a former Fulbright scholar in the USA, had returned to Tibet in July 1995 to make a film documentary about traditional Tibetan performing arts. He was first detained in summer 1995 in Nyari detention centre, Shigatse prefecture - frequently referred to as Shigatse prison - before being transferred briefly to Drapchi prison and then to Powo Tramo. A former prisoner at Nyari detention centre told TIN in 1998 that during his detention in Nyari, Ngawang Choephel seemed "thin and weak because there was nothing much to eat". The former inmate also said that Ngawang Choephel was not being forced to labour at Nyari, and stayed in his cell for the whole day.

Ngawang Choephel reportedly told his mother during her recent visit not to worry about him, and to continue her religious practice. "The conversation with him did not seem natural," said his uncle Tsering Wangdu. "It was as if he had been told beforehand what to say."

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