By Indo-Asian News Service
Kathmandu: As China beautifies its capital Beijing for the Olympic Games next year, its prisons still abound with terrible tales, including severe torture and long sentences for trivial “offences”, says a Tibetan prisoner who escaped into exile after spending 11 years behind bars.
Sonam Dorjee, a 38-year-old Tibetan who managed to escape from China-controlled Tibet Autonomous Region recently, is trying to highlight the appalling condition in the Drapchi and Chushur prisons, where prisoners, mostly Tibetans, are systematically tortured.
“Prison guards asked me to stand on the chair placed in the middle of the room, and tied my thumbs to the thin nylon thread that was hanging from the ceiling,” Dorjee said in a graphic description of the torture methods circulated by the New York-based International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) organisation late Wednesday.
“Once the chair on which I was standing on was kicked away, I was hanging from the ceiling and was beaten again…
“After hanging for three minutes from the thin thread, my entire body from the tips of my toes to the ears started burning and hurting and I began to hear a ringing noise. I fell unconscious.
“The interrogation started again once I regained consciousness, with the same questions, and at the same time I could hear haunting screams from the other cells.”
In 1992, when China imposed martial law in Tibet, there were several protests by Tibetans, all of them suppressed ruthlessly.
Dorjee and four other farmers were arrested in June 1992 for displaying a home-made version of the Tibetan national ‘snow lion’ flag, which is banned in Tibet, and a banner with the words ‘Independence for Tibet’.
They waved both at a township meeting and raised slogans like “Chinese must leave Tibet”, and “independence for Tibet” for about 15 minutes when they were arrested.
One of the protesters, Sonam Rinchen, a young farmer in his 20s, was given electric shocks, with an electric wire attached to the nails of each finger.
“There is a sensation that every strand of skin is being torn apart from the flesh,” Dorjee told ICT. “For a few days after experiencing that ordeal, the body is rendered almost lifeless.”
Rinchen died in prison in 1999.
Two more protesters, Thubten Yeshe and Lhundrub, are still in prison. The fifth member of the group, Kunchog Lodoe, was released on medical parole in 1996 and is still in poor health.
Dorjee also says that the Chinese are using Tibetans to torture Tibetan prisoners.
“The Chinese would mostly use electric batons while Tibetans would use sticks (to beat us). Tibetans would scold us, saying that we should be more grateful to the Chinese as general conditions have improved much since the Chinese overthrew the old Tibetan government.
“The Tibetan guards had to beat us or risk demotion or worse, (political) condemnation.
“Since we are struggling against the Chinese, it does not hurt my heart when they torture us. On the other hand, when Tibetans torture us, it hurts from within.”
The ICT said that China has stepped up efforts to prevent information about political prisoners reaching the outside world. Sometimes it takes years to confirm details about prisoners serving long sentences for acts of peaceful protest.
Even after they are released, Tibetan political prisoners continue to face severe hardship as they are perceived as ‘a threat to state security’.