Takna Jigme Sangpo was the longest-serving political prisoner of Tibetan ethnicity, having spent 37 years in a prison near Lhasa.
John Kamm is an American businessman and human rights activist. He is the founder of The Dui Hua Foundation, a nonprofit humanitarian organization that promotes universal human rights in well-informed, mutually respectful dialogue with China. He is credited with having helped more than 400 political and religious prisoners in China.
Ngawang Choephel is a documentary filmmaker, director, producer, and musician.
Ani Pachen was a Tibetan freedom fighter and activist.
Seven Years in Tibet is a 1997 American biographical war drama film directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud. It is based on Austrian mountaineer and Schutzstaffel (SS) sergeant Heinrich Harrer's 1952 memoir of the same name, about his experiences in Tibet between 1944 and 1951. Seven Years in Tibet stars Brad Pitt and David Thewlis, and has music composed by John Williams with a feature performance by cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
Dolma Kyab, born in 1976, is a writer and teacher in his native Tibet. He was imprisoned at Chushur Prison, which is located in a rural area south-west of his native home, Lhasa, Tibet. On March 9, 2005, he was arrested in Lhasa at the middle school where he was employed as a history teacher. On September 16, 2005 he was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison by the Lhasa People’s Intermediate Court for the crime of stealing and/or passing on “state secrets.”
Lhalu Tsewang Dorje commonly known as Lhalu, Lhalu Se, or Lhalu Shape, was a Tibetan aristocrat and politician who held a variety of positions in various Tibetan governments before and after 1951.
Drapchi Prison, or Lhasa Prison No. 1, is the largest prison in Tibet, China, located in Lhasa. Drapchi is named after its location and was originally a military garrison until it was converted into a prison after the 1959 Tibetan Uprising. It is roughly one mile from the city centre and is the main prison for judicially sentenced prisoners in Tibet. It was the primary place for the detention of political prisoners before 2005 when the newer and modernised Chushur Prison was built. Drapchi also goes by the name Delapuxie prison, which has sometimes been listed as a separate prison online.
Marie Louville, is a French journalist, an expert on Tibet, and a director of documentary films on Tibet.
Phuntsog Nyidron is a Tibetan Buddhist nun and a former high-profile prisoner in Tibet. In 1989, she and eight other nuns traveled from her hometown to the provincial capital of Lhasa when it was convulsed by Tibetan independence protests and riots, and handed out leaflets and shouted anti-Chinese slogans. She was tried and imprisoned for the charge of counterrevolutionary propaganda and incitement and imprisoned at the Drapchi Prison that same year. During her incarceration, she produced and smuggled out tapes of her and other prisoners' political songs, engaged in hunger strikes, and made publicized allegations of mistreatment. One of the better-known Tibetan prisoners outside Tibet, she was the subject of a release campaign by several United States Congress parliamentarians and governmental groups. Because of their efforts, and Chinese wishes to improve Sino-American relations, her sentence was reduced and commuted in 2004. She lives in Switzerland since 2006.
Wangdu is a former Tibetan monk who became an HIV/AIDS activist at the age of 41. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2008 for "endangering state security", and in 2012 he was in hospital.
Human rights in Tibet has been a subject of intense international scrutiny and debate, particularly since the annexation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China. Before the 1950s, Tibet's social structure was marked by inequality and described as a caste-like system or, controversially, as serfdom. Severe punishments, including permanent mutilation of body parts, were common, although capital punishment was banned in 1913. Muslim warlord Ma Bufang caused widespread destruction and deaths in Amdo, which is located northeast of Central Tibet.
Geshe Sherab Gyatso (1884–1968), was a Tibetan religious teacher and a politician who served in the Chinese government in the 1950s. After living in Lhasa for a period, he fell from favor with the establishment there in the 1930s and returned to his home in Amdo, an eastern Tibetan area. He associated himself first with the Nationalist Government of the Republic of China and then with the Communists of the People's Republic of China. He held a number of government posts in Tibetan areas under the People's Republic of China. He was also initially the vice-president and later the president of the Buddhist Association of China; the latter position he held until 1966. In 1968, during the Cultural Revolution, Sherab Gyatso's left leg was broken by a Red Guard. On November 1, 1968, he died. After the Gang of Four was arrested, on August 26, 1978, the Qinghai provincial government rehabilitated him.
Dhondup Wangchen is a Tibetan filmmaker imprisoned by the Chinese government in 2008 on charges related to his documentary Leaving Fear Behind. Made with senior Tibetan monk Jigme Gyatso, the documentary consists of interviews with ordinary Tibetan people discussing the 14th Dalai Lama, the Chinese government, the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and Han Chinese migrants to the region. After smuggling the tapes of the interviews out of Tibet, however, Dhondup Wangchen and Jigme Gyatso were detained during the 2008 Tibetan unrest.
Drapchi is a 2013 Tibetan-language Film directed by Arvind Iyer and stars acclaimed Tibetan singer Namgyal Lhamo in the lead role as Yiga Gyalnang. The film is a musical drama set against the backdrop of Tibet and Nepal and based on a true story. Drapchi has screened at the Manneim-Heidelberg, Cairo International, Warsaw International, Kerala International and Rome Independent Film Festival.
Jigme Gyatso is a Tibetan activist of the Tibetan Independence Organisation who, in 1996, was sentenced to 15 years in prison on charges of "leading a counter-revolutionary organisation" and "inciting splittism". Two more years were added to his sentence in 2004 when he protested in jail. Several international human rights groups have protested or campaigned on his behalf, and Amnesty International has designated him a prisoner of conscience.
Prostitution in Tibet is thought to have existed for centuries. Testimonies of its existence were provided by outside visitors in the first half of the twentieth century. According to the British writer Christopher Hale, due to the practice of polyandry in Tibet, many women were unable to find a husband and moved to villages and towns, where they fell into prostitution. Their clients came from the caravans crossing the Tibetan plateau, and also from the monasteries.
Tibet in Song is a 2009 documentary film written, produced, and directed by Ngawang Choephel. The film celebrates traditional Tibetan folk music while depicting the past fifty years of Chinese rule in Tibet, including Ngawang's experience as a political prisoner. The film premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Special Jury Prize for World Cinema. It opened in theatres on September 24, 2010 in New York City.
Lobsang Tashi, also known as Khenchen Lobsang Tashi (1897–1966) was a Tibetan politician who was a senior monastic official and the monastic prime minister (sileun) of the Tibetan government during the early Chinese occupation of Tibet. After the departure of the 14th Dalai Lama in 1959, he was incarcerated in Drapchi Prison where he died in 1966.
Phuntsok Wangchuk was a Tibetan independence activist and political prisoner.
