TIN Testimonies, launched 10 November 2003, provides first-hand accounts to complement our reports and illustrate more fully the impact upon individuals in Tibet of policies and social change in the area. They are drawn from edited and summarised interviews provided by our overseas researchers.
As part of its Testimonies series, TIN presents a new and vivid eyewitness account of the demonstrations, and ensuing punishment and maltreatment of prisoners, in Drapchi prison in May 1998. It was supplied to TIN by Nyidrol, also known as Lobsang Lhamo, a nun from Phodo nunnery, Lhundrub Dzong, Lhasa.
The planning of the 01 May 1998 demonstration in Drapchi prison, the demonstration itself and the subsequent beating of the protesters
“One week before […], we were told that the Chinese flag would be hoisted and for this there would be a ceremony that we had to attend. […] Before May 1998, there was no Chinese flag in the prison. This would have been a very special day for them. So we told each other that we had to do something. […] We decided to shout out on the 1st May 1998 when the Chinese were going to raise the flag because all the prisoners would be there, criminal and political. We all prepared to shout out on that day. We were told that we had to wash our hair and we were asked to wear nice, clean clothes on that day. We had to wear prison uniform, which had to be very clean. We were given red flags. […]”
“[On the day] all of us were wearing a lot of layers of sweaters and extra socks because we knew that we were going to be beaten a lot. We stood in line well and then they started to play the Chinese national anthem. There were no foreign journalists but there were many Chinese journalists including TV journalists. [The prisoners of] Unit 4 were standing next to us and they were criminal prisoners. One of them was a Khampa [a Tibetan from Eastern Tibet] […]. We were about to start shouting our slogans when the flag was being raised and the national anthem was being played, but then he [the Khampa] started shouting out and ran towards the front. He was running towards the flag and he wanted to take it but he couldn’t do that. He was then arrested and pulled away and his forehead was dragged across the floor. Then we followed and shouted out. We were with many; we were around 60 people and there were also many common prisoners. Many people were rushing and shouting and the monks from Rukhag 5 [prison section] were also shouting out. Although there were many criminal prisoners who were shouting, the officials didn’t notice this because so many people were shouting out. Then the criminal prisoners were taken away to their cells. They tried to put us into the cells but none of us went and we continued to shout slogans. Then the People’s Armed Police appeared on the scene and they tried to bring us under control but they couldn’t and so they brought many more soldiers from an army camp outside the prison. There were so many soldiers and six took hold of each one of us. They beat us badly and we were put into the flower fences and then they kicked us into the raised flowerbeds. They hit our heads and bodies with their guns. As we didn’t go back and continued our slogans, the soldiers dragged us towards our cells and left us in front of our unit. Then there were many soldiers with guns and shields. They surrounded us on the spot. Then they took us out one by one and beat us a lot. We were then taken into the courtyard [of our unit] and made to kneel down on the floor with our hands on the floor. [Six prisoners who had not been taken into the square for the ceremony], were also beaten a lot. They had heard that we were shouting out in the square and so they had also shouted out, and broke the door and came out into the courtyard. They suffered a lot and they were badly injured. They were [left] like dead people. Then we were left in the courtyard until late evening. That night, those who had not been taken to the square and some from our group [about 16 people] were put into solitary confinement cells.”
Nyidrol, and the other female political prisoners from their rukhag who weren’t in solitary confinement, refused to eat because the prisoners in solitary confinement were not being given food. A few days after they had begun eating again, they were ordered by some guards to sing the Chinese national anthem and, because they refused, were ordered to stand.
“We all were very weak because it had not been long since we had been beaten and we had not eaten any food. [One of the nuns standing next to me, Khedron Yonten,] was so weak that she fell down on the floor in the courtyard of the prison. Seeing this, they said that she was praying and prostrating to His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Actually, she was not prostrating, she just fell down because she was so weak. [Two prison officials] pulled her up. I told them that she was not praying and prostrating to His Holiness the Dalai Lama. They asked me how I knew this. I told them that they should be sincere, that she was not prostrating and that she fell due to weakness. They then kicked me and said that I had to mind my own business. They told Khedron Yonten that she had to do one hundred prostrations to them. She couldn’t do this because she was too weak, so she was badly beaten there. Then she was taken into their office where she was terribly beaten. Although we couldn’t see them beating her, from outside we heard her being beaten. After that, she was taken out from their office and they put a bowl on her head with water in it and made her stand on the floor for a day and a night. The next day, when she came back to the cell, we couldn’t look at her because they had used electric prods on her face, mouth and all parts of her body. She couldn’t see anything with her eyes. When she was coming back to the cell, she couldn’t see anything around her and she was stumbling over the flowerbeds, dustbins and water taps. Then some of us went to her and brought her in and left her on the bed but she couldn’t talk. We tried to get her to drink some tea but she couldn’t, so we poured some tea into her mouth.”
“The next day, she couldn’t get up from her bed, and then, three days later, the five nuns who later died [including Khedron Yonten] and me were taken from our cells. Because we had refused to sing the national anthem, we were taken to the square. They said that we had spat on the flag and because of this we had to kneel down in front of it. We said that we were not going to kneel there. They then brought two people from their vehicle that had their hands tied behind their backs. They might have been criminal prisoners. There were also soldiers there and [the officials] told us that the two were being taken to be executed. Then they told us that we were always being disobedient in prison and that we were going to be executed too. They said: “If we killed you and covered your bodies, no one would know and no one would care about you. You are dust in society and you are the things that don’t have any value. You cost nothing.” Then they told us that they were going to let us go back to our cells and that we could write letters if we changed our minds and were ready to say that we would sing the anthem. We were given two pieces of paper. What we wrote though was: “We are innocent and we have not committed any crimes. We work very hard, doing our best for our work and since we have not committed any crimes, there is nothing in our minds that we have to change.” Because of what we had written in the letters, we were called again the next day and told to sing the anthem. We wouldn’t sing and we just stood in the hall where they wanted us to sing. They came then to see us but we were not singing. Then they dragged us out by our hair. They put sticks into our mouth, saying that there must be something wrong with our mouths. We told them that we had not promised to sing the song and that therefore we were not going to sing it. They beat us a lot that night. […]”
“The next day we were called in again. […] We were told to confess to what we had done but we refused to confess because, we said, we had not committed any crime and that there was nothing in our minds that we had to change. They said that they were not going to ask any other questions apart from one thing: were we going to sing the anthem or not? We all said that we were not going to sing it. They told us: “Although we have been both soft and hard in our approach towards you, you never change”. Then they left the room and about six soldiers entered. These soldiers came in and asked whether we wanted to fight them. We couldn’t fight with them because they were well trained and they were all men. They were Chinese. They were the soldiers from Drapchi. […] I think it had been ten or eleven days [since the 1st May event]. They said that the Communist Party was feeding us. We said that the Communists did not feed us and that the Communist government took things away from us and that they make us pay high taxes. As soon I said this, they hit my mouth with metal pincers and, see here, my teeth were broken. [The interviewee shows her broken teeth] I spat the blood from my mouth in his face. As we all were standing together, they started beating all of us terribly. They smashed our heads against the wall. They used electric prods, which was much worse than other types of beating. The moment they used electric prods on you, you can’t feel anything and even if you want to stand up, you can’t. Because we all wore layers of clothing, they took them off. They took our shoes off and used electric prods on our feet. I didn’t want to shout out when they beat me and used the electric prod on me, but I couldn’t bear the pain so I cried out and because of this, the other prisoners heard us screaming. Because my teeth were broken, there was blood all over my face and body and on the floor. When they used the electric prod and said that we had to get up, it was difficult to stand. We were beaten for a long time and when I woke up and stood up again, it was impossible for me to be able to look at the others because they had been so badly beaten up too. They then threw water over us and said that we were only pretending that we couldn’t stand up. They pushed me against the wall by grabbing hold of my head. We didn’t think we would survive this time because they hadn’t beaten us up like that before. The prison officials didn’t care and they were not there. There were only the soldiers around us. Because they were soldiers and they were trained, they were very strong. I spat the blood from my mouth at them and so they grabbed my head and pushed it against the wall. Then I lost consciousness. I didn’t know anything and when I came to my senses [after 7 days] I was in the prison clinic. I didn’t know whether the others had been taken to hospital straight away from the room, [where we had been beaten up] or whether they were sent back to Rukhag and then taken to hospital, or whether they were not taken to hospital at all.”
The aftermath Nyidrol describes people from a work unit from Lhasa Municipality who visited her while she was in the prison hospital. She wasn’t entirely sure what the work unit was, but they interviewed her about what had happened to her and conditions in the prison did improve after their visit. It seems this was an official investigation into the 1998 protests and the ensuing reports of maltreatment.
“They asked me which unit I was from. I told them that I was from Unit 3. They asked me what had caused me to be in the clinic and what illness I had. I told them that I had been beaten up and that was why I was in the clinic. As soon as I said this, the doctor rolled her eyes around which meant I had said something wrong and I should not have told them that. I told them strongly and they asked why I had been beaten up. I told them that soldiers had beaten me up. They asked me and I told them that they [the prison officials] had brought the soldiers in that had beaten me up. They said that I was not allowed to talk about the beatings etc. […] Then, after two weeks in the hospital, I was put in a solitary confinement cell for eleven months. I finished my sentence while I was still in solitary confinement and then I was released from my cell. […] They took lots of pictures of me before I was released. […] They said that I was not allowed to say anything and that I would be arrested straight away if I spoke about the beatings. […] They said that they would send my pictures everywhere and that they would know where I was and what I was doing etc. They said that although I was going to be released from prison, I would still be in their hands and that if I was going to talk, I would be re-arrested and I shouldn’t think that I would ever be released again. They made me sign a promise that I wouldn’t talk about anything.”
