I met Lhundup at the 'Kana Nirvana' restaurant, a place run by Tibetans where western food is served for tourists along with some good Tibetan herbal teas. It is not only the quality of the food which makes this place special, but also the events they organize on Mondays when ex political prisoners come and are willing to talk to tourists about their experience in Chinese prisons. The place is well known one among the Pro-Tibet community also for being the center of distribution of a few magazines and a common gathering point for exchanging news and stories.
With a coffee on the table, Lhundup began telling me hers:

'I grew up in Lhasa where I lived with one of my aunts. A few years later I moved back to my village to live with my family, and when I was 20 I decided I wanted to become a nun.
At that time there was no nunnery in our village so we were building one between some of us. One day some Chinese authorities came with a Patriotic Re-education campaign. We all were forced to denounce the Dalai Lama, renounce our beliefs and follow Chinese rules.

By that time there were more than 100 nuns, but many left after this campaign afraid of future consequences. Some nuns of the nunnery - I was among them - went to Lhasa to protest with the opportunity of a religious festival – the Tibetan Yogurt ceremony. It was August 1990.
The first day of the ceremony, we tried to shout slogans for free Tibet, but quickly after 5 or 6 minutes, the police came and took us away.'

They were taken to Gutcha prison, outside Lhasa, where they were interrogated and beaten. During the interrogation Police wanted to know who the organizers of the protest were.

'We claimed no organisers, that it happened spontaneously. We were 14 nuns from 2 different nunneries, and we didn't know each other.'

The nuns were kept for two months in Gutcha prison, interrogated and tortured on a daily basis. Finally they were sentenced from 3 to 7 years, with the charges of being splittists and contra-revolutionaries. Lhundup was put into Drapchi prison.

When arriving to Drapchi the Chief prison authority said: 'you have to change your mind, be a new person, your dreams will not come true.' She was given a handbook of prison rules and forced to get rid of her nun clothes forever.

Soon she had to do prison work, sometimes outside the prison: cleaning public toilets, working in the fields or in the greenhouses. They call it “education through labour”. It was hard work, but they were used to it from the life in the nunnery.

In 1993, three years after her imprisonment, Lhundup and other nuns managed to clandestinely record a tape with patriotic Tibetan songs for a Free Tibet. The goal was to spread their shout among other young political prisoners to raise their spirits. It was not an easy task to do this inside the prison. First they borrowed a tape recorder from one of the common prisoners, and recorded the songs while the guards were sleeping. The tapes, five in total, were acquired while she was walking towards her work in a green house outside the prison.

Finally one day the prison authorities found out about the tapes. The nuns were found guilty of new charges and four years more where added on top of their current sentences. As usual during these trials, the lawyers were arranged by Chinese authority.

Once she returned back to prison after the trials she found that their conditions were now even harder than before. New exercises had been included in the program, including military physical training in the extreme Tibetan winter. If someone is accused of not working during these exercises then they are punished. 'A friend of mine', says Lhundup, 'was so brutally beaten that she needed to be taken to Hospital where she died after five days, her kidneys totally destroyed by the beatings.'

The prison authorities also ran competitions within the prison: which room is cleaner or tidier, etc. with promises of improvements in the conditions inside the prison for the winners.

'Our room always was first or second position. This was annoying the prison authorities. One day, with no reason whatsoever, one of the nuns was punished by being kept inside a dark punishment room for several months. This room is so small that you can not even stand up. So we decided to start a hunger strike against this decision'.

The police officers said that they were not allowed to die in the prison, and forced them to break the strike with new promises of improvement, which of course were never fulfilled.

In May 4th 1998, the Chinese National Day, the prison authorities prepared a big ceremony inside the prison, a ceremony where for the very first time, a huge Chinese flag was going to be raised in the building.

'I remember how Tibetan people gathered outside the prison to shout Free Tibet slogans, and of course we joined them from our windows. This provoked the worst tortures I had seen. The guards were beating us with the guns, the floor was full of blood. Eight prisoners died in the incident and there were general punishments for everyone which made conditions inside the prison even worse. I was not allowed to have a shower in one month, and during four months I couldn't receive any visit. By this time I had already spent 8 years in Drapchi.'

One year later, in May 1999, Lhundup was finally released.

'I didn't know I was going to be released. I had lost faith in being released one day, so this was a big surprise for me. One day a guard came and shout my name. I thought I was going to be interrogated or tortured as usual, but instead I was informed that I had already served my sentence and that I was free to leave. My family did not know either, so nobody came to pick me up at the prison door'.

She went to see her sister in Lhasa, who was really surprised to see her and called the rest of the family. They took her back to the village where the local police station warned her 'you have to be careful now, not get involved in political activities, not telling anything that happened while in prison, or you and your family will go to prison again.'

From that moment, periodically, there were checks at home and sometimes she was observed and followed by the police. The control was so tight that she needed to ask for permission if she wants to move anywhere outside the village.

Neighbours and friends started to treat her in strange ways, afraid of getting in trouble for relating with an ex prisoner. It was also very hard for her to get a job.

'My family helped me with some money but still there was lots of pressure and made life also hard for them. Life in prison was difficult, but after release it doesn't get any better. I saw no other choice than leaving for India'.

After seven years struggling with a hard life outside the prison, in July 2006 she finally made the move to India. She paid 4,000 Chinese Yens to an experienced guide who helped her and other five Tibetans to cross the mountains. In Nepal she reached the Tibetan Reception Center in Kathmandu, a common arrival place for Tibetans seeking refuge. They helped her to go to Delhi, where she could take a local bus to the village of Dharamsala where she lives now.

She has had no news of her family since March this year. The telephone line is being controlled by the Chinese Police. She got a last call from them saying that it was better if she didn't contact them anymore because it was dangerous.

Currently, sponsored by the Tibetan government in exile, she is undergoing medical tests in the the Dharamsala hospital. They cannot find the reason why she has no energy anymore.
When asked if she regrets protesting that day back in 1990, she answers 'No, I don't. I'm proud that I tried to do something for my country. After so many people gave their lives since 1959, my dream is to see that one day Tibet will be free again'.

---

Further reading:
- Testimonies from victims of malnutrition, forced labor and excessive physical exercise
- In defense of Truth
- Conventions on religion freedom