The Chinese confirmation of 56 names contributes to the high level of accuracy achieved by Tibetan information gatherers, who operates in secret and are the only source of news about arrests, specially half of the names were collected from rural areas of Tibet and 1993 being the most difficult year for information gatherers, who from early 1993 have been the focus of a security crackdown led by China's State Security Bureau, resulting in several arrests.

The 56 confirmed list included 10 women, 7 of them nuns. 28 belong to outside of Lhasa.

According to South China morning post, in July, China admitted to holding 2935 counter-revolutionary prisoners, about 10% of these official 'counter revolutionary' are believed to be tibetans. (EuroTibet News N·1)