Palden Gyatso was born in Panam (Gyantse district in central Tibet) in 1931. At the age of ten he became a monk, moving to Drepung monastery, near Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, when he was sixteen.

During the 1959 National Uprising Palden Gyatso helped with the organization of a small volunteer army. When the Tibetan Government instructed the monks at Drepung to prepare to fight if necessary. Palden Gyatso became the leader of a 100-man force. The Uprising was quickly crushed by the Chinese army before they even got to fight, so Palden Gyatso returned to his monastery. There he found Rigzin Jampa, his 72-year old teacher, and together they escaped from the Chinese soldiers, Palden Gyalso often carrying his teacher on his back.

Upon reaching Panam, both were arrested. Palden Gyaltso experienced his first encounter of torture at the hands of the Chinese authorities; during the interrogation he was handcuffed, kicked, and beaten with a stick with nails in the end. Sentenced to seven year imprisonment without any legal representations, he spend the next two years in chains.

By 1962 he could no longer endure the harsh treatment and conditions in prison, and he was already determined to tell the outside world what was happening in Tibet. He escaped and reached the border with six friends, but was arrested by soldiers returning from the Sino-Indian war. Taken back to Panam District Prison they were cruelly punished for escaping. After severe beating, their hands were tied behind their backs and they were suspended from the ceiling by their arms for hours on end. Palden Gyatso's sentence was increased by eight years, and so he returned to a life of hard labour on near-starvation rations. Some of Palden Gyatso's fellow prisoners, particularly the elderly, died from hunger and harsh prison regime. He survived, though at one stage hunger drove him to eat his own boots.

During the Cultural Revolutioin, the situaation worsened for the political prisoners in Tibet: they were stripped of all Tibetan possessions. Palden Gyatso now found himself breaking rocks at Outitu Prison (today under Sangyip Prison Administration outside Llasa), unbearably hard work punctuated only by the regular struggle sessions during which prisoners were encouraged to speak out against traditional Tibetan values and desecrate pictures of the Dalai Lama. Many were forced to sign spurious confessions which resulted in their summary execution. Those sentenced to death were forced to sing and dance before other prisoners: Palden Gyatso recalls how he and his friends wept at the sight. On the day of their execution, big wooden blocks with Chinese characters were hung around their necks, and they were then shot in front of the other inmates.

In 1975 Palden Gyatso was "released" but was retained at a work camp near Lhasa were conditions were scarcely better than in prisons. During his nine years at this labour camp, eighteen inmates committed suicide, and many died due to the harsh conditions.

After a few years, Palden Gyatso was transferred to a carpet factory. His assistant was Ghen Lobsang Wangehuk (a prominent political prisoner in Tibet who succumbed to torture in 1987), one of his old cell-mates, and together they had ample time to plan how they could inform the outside world of the conditions in Tibet. They started to compile news and write pamphlets. In 1979 they stuck up one of their pamphlets on a notice board used for Chinese propaganda about Tibet. This pamphlet was signed with their full names, a courageouse gesture aimed at inspiring other Tibetans to speak out against the regime and also to test their "constitutional" rights.

Their action caused a big stir in Lhasa: the authorities, apparently fearing an escalation of feeling, against them, did not arrest Palden Gyatso and Ghen Lobsang Wangehuk immediately, yet Palden Gyatso knew it was only a matter of time. Ghen Lobsang Wangehuk was arrested a year later and Palden Gyatso's activities were monitored wherever he went. Yet he continued alone, secretly putting his pamphlets at night in Lhasa at great personal risk.

Inevitably, Palden Gyatso was arrested once again in 1983 and began another eight year sentence for "counter revolutionary" activities. As before he had been given no official trial. During six years at Outitu Prison he continued to keep careful notes about the conditions and hid them in his sleeves, fearing to show them to other inmates who might well prove to be spies. He managed to smuggle out some of these notes through visitors, and some of his writing reached Dharamsala, the seat of the Tibetan Government in Exile, in India. The Chinese authorities suspected Palden Gyatso of passing information to outsiders and increased his sentence by another year.

He continued to write notes, showing great courage. One fellow prisoner caught smuggling information out to relatives was severely tortured, his sentence increased by nine years and his family beaten. After this incident, the brutality of the prison authorities increased. Palden Gyatso and his fellow prisoners now faced regular beatings with chains and electric shock torture.

In 1990 Palden Gyaltso was transferred to Drapehi Prison in Lhasa. Upon arrival he was interrogated and tortured, an electric shock baton was forced down his throat. Later when he regained consciousness in a pool of vomit and urine he found that twenty two of his teeth were missing.

Shortly before his eventual release in 1992, Palden Gyatso arranged for some Tibetan officials he trusted to bribe the guards into selling him some torture implements. These were paid for by many friends who realised the great importance of showing such objects to the outside world, even though a single electric baton would cost them the equivalent of three months salary.

Upon his release, Palden Gyatso headed for the Nepalese border, carrying with him the torture implements. He knew that the Chinese border police had his photograph and were looking for him, so he disguised himself in a Chinese outfit. Travelling though dense forest, he eventually crossed into Nepal. Still in danger being handed over to the Chinese authorities, he made for India. He now works at the reception centre for Tibetan refugees in Dharamsala.

Palden Gyatso's burning desire to inform the outside world about Tibetan prisons and labour camps and the suffering of the Tibetan political prisoners has never left him. His story is by no means over.