Published by: World Tibet Network News, Wednesday, May 22 1996 (Part I)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Venerable Palden Gyatso - The Monk They Couldn't Break

Testimony after 30 Years in the Chinese Laogai

Monday, May 27

6:00pm - 8:00pm

School of Community and Public Affairs

Concordia University

2149 Mackay St., Montreal, Quebec

Sponsored by: The Canada Tibet Committee

The Canadian Human Rights Foundation

Amnesty InternationalCanada

Contact: Carole Samdup - tel: (514) 487-0665

Palden Gyatso, a former Amnesty International Prisoner of Conscience, will meet with friends and supporters on Monday evening at Concordia University's School of Community and Public Affairs. Gyatso, a Tibetan monk, will describe his years in prison and exhibit torture instruments which he smuggled out of Tibet. Following the presentation, Gyatso will be available to answer questions.

Venerable Palden Gyatso was born in 1931 in Panam (Gyantse District of Tibet). At the age of 10 he took monastic vows, and when he was 16 he moved to Drepung monastery near Lhasa. He was arrested by the Chinese in 1959 when the Tibetan National Uprising was crushed, and spent the first two years of his jail term in chains. He escaped prison in 1962, but was re-arrested and severely beaten and tortured. Over the next many years he was interrogated and tortured repeatedly.

Starting in 1975, Gyatso was transferred to a number of work camps where the conditions were scarcely better than in jail. In 1990, he found himself back in prison for having put up posters in Lhasa calling for Tibet's independence. On his first day he was interrogated and tortured. An electric shock baton was forced down his throat. When he regained consciousness, he had lost 20 teeth.

Shortly before his release in 1992, Gyatso persuaded some Tibetan officials to bribe the prison guards into selling him some torture instruments. These were paid for by many friends who understood well enough the importance of providing evidence to the outside world of the existence of such objects. The cost of a single electric baton was the equivalent of three months' salary. Upon his release, Gyatso headed for the Nepalese border disguised as a Chinese to avoid the suspicions of the border police, carrying with him the torture instruments. From Nepal, where he was still in danger of being extradited to China, he finally crossed into India. He now works at the reception centre for new arrivals in the Tibetan Community at Dharamsala.

Gyatso's sense of outrage and injustice has carried him this far; it remains his driving mission to tell the outside world the truth about Chinese prisons in Tibet. In 1995, he testified at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, providing extensive details of the treatment of prisoners in these prisons. He is also concerned with emphasising that all Tibetans are being deprived of their most fundamental human rights, and is appealing to the international community to help his brothers and sisters in Tibet.

We invite you to come hear his story.

Translation will be provided, into French and English.