Dear Friends,

I am writing to you to appeal for your immediate action to help free Ngawang Choephel, who has reportedly been imprisoned in Shigatse, Tibet, since August, 1995. At the time he was detained he was in Tibet researching traditional Tibetan folk music and had in his possession a video camera.

Ngawang Choephel is a close friend of mine. I met him in 1987 while I was living in McLeod Ganj, Dharamsala, India, where he was studying at the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts (TIPA). We became very good friends, and in December that year we travelled to Ahmednagar in south India to stay with his mother and his uncle. Ngawang had wanted to spend his school holidays with his family and to help them with their street-side business of selling sweaters. I stayed with him and his family and we also visited his village in Mungod and Ganden and Drepung monasteries together.

Ngawang's mother, Sonam Dickey, carried him on her back over the Himalayas and out of Tibet in 1966, when he was only 2 years old. He was raised in South India in the Tibetan settlement at Mungod. After he finished high school, he studied traditional Tibetan folk music, song, and dance at TIPA, where he was recognized as an outstanding student. He completed his diploma in 1988, and after graduation taught music at Tibetan schools in Mungod and Bylakuppe. In 1993 he was awarded a prestigious Fulbright Scholarship and went to the United States to continue his musical studies at Middlebury College, Vermont. One his primary goals was to learn Western musical notation so that he could preserve Tibet's musical heritage in a form accessible to a general audience. Another of his priorities was to make a video of Tibetan folk music and dance for use as an educational tool.

The last time I saw him was in the autumn of 1994 at a Halloween gathering in Amherst, Massachusetts. A few months later he left for India. He was looking forward to seeing his mother. His plan then was to travel to Tibet to research and record music in his homeland. He believed that there was a wonderful legacy of traditional songs and dances preserved in the memories of the older people in Tibetan villages, and his dream was to record it for posterity. Since young Tibetans in Tibet are not free to learn and enjoy traditional rites of celebration and expression, Ngawang believed that if he didn't speak to the elders and record the music in their minds, it would be lost forever.

Ngawang Choephel has been imprisoned for more than nine months! News of his detention was reported February, 1996, and appeals for his release have only just begun. He was in Tibet doing what his Western education at Middlebury College taught him to do-scholarly research. Now he is in prison. It is quite likely he has been subject to ill-treatment and abuse. His detention has never been confirmed or acknowledged by the Chinese.

I am deeply concerned for Ngawang's well-being and appeal to you now to help bring his illegal imprisonment to the attention of the Chinese government. Please go to the post office, buy 10 or 20 aerograms (only 50 cents each), and write letters to the Chinese officials listed below. If you can, please write more than once. Your letters will help Ngawang. Through our compassionate efforts we must demand his immediate release. I appeal to you from my heart, PLEASE HELP NGAWANG!

It would also be a great help if you would contact your elected government representatives on Ngawang's behalf, and encourage your local Tibet support organization to campaign actively on his behalf.

Since 1987 I have been doing my tiny, tiny bit to help Tibet by being a member of Tibet support groups, going to demonstrations, writing a few letters, and helping disseminate and publish information about Tibet. Clearly this is not enough. The urge to do much more has suddenly awakened in me. Unfortunately, it has taken a close friend's becoming a political prisoner to wake me up in this way. I hope you will not be as complacent as I was.

...may all beings be kind to one another...

...may all political prisoners immediately be freed...

...may His Holiness the Dalai Lama live long for the benefit of all sentient beings...

...may all His Holiness's wishes for Tibet immediately be fulfilled...

Thank you so much,

Wendy Cook

2 Auburn Court #3

Brookline, MA 02146 USA

phone: (617) 731-2912

e-mail: 103053.20@compuserve.com

What You Can Do to Help Ngawang Choephel:

Write to the following Chinese officials, urging the immediate and unconditional release of Ngawang Choephel and seeking assurances that Ngawang Choephel and all current detainees at Nyari detention center be treated humanely in accordance with international standards.

President of the Tibet Autonomous

Regional People's Government

Gyaltsen Norbu Zhuxi

Xizang Zizhiqu Renmin Zhengfu

1 Kang'angdonglu

Lasashi 850000, Xizang Zizhiqu

People's Republic of China

Director of the Department of

Public Security Bureau

Nyima Tsering Juzhang

Gong'anju, Kung Jue Lin Zhe lu er hao

Shigatseshi, Xizang Zizhiqu

People's Republic of China

Mayor of Shigatse City

Tsewang Palden Shizhang

Shigatse Shizhengfu

Kung Jue Lin Zhe lu er hao

Shigatseshi, Xizang Zizhiqu

People's Republic of China

Premier of the People's

Republic of China

Premier Li Peng

c/- Embassy of the People's Republic

of China

2300 Connecticut Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20008

(or c/- the Embassy of the People's

Republic of China in your country)

"[Gendun] Rinchen attributes his sudden release [from prison] to the pressure that was brought to bear on the Chinese Government: "So many people were involved. I had many friends, and friends of Tibet.""

-Amnesty Action

From: Wendy Cook <103053.20@CompuServe.COM>