Report Alleges Maltreatment In Tibetan Prison


BEIJING, Mar. 30, 1999 -- (Reuters) One in 33 Tibetan male political prisoners held in Tibet's main Drapchi prison since 1987 has died of maltreatment, the U.K.-based Tibet Information Network (TIN) said in a report received on Tuesday.

It said Tibetan prisons have abused around 25 percent of 1,600 political prisoners detained since 1987 and one in 20 women prisoners in the Drapchi jail was likely to die from maltreatment.

Maltreatment included torture, beating, solitary confinement and refusal to feed prisoners, said the report, based on a book TIN has published called "Hostile Elements: A Study of Political Imprisonment in Tibet, 1987-1998."

China called the report a pack of lies.

"Chinese prisons consistently implement civilized administrations. The contents of this report are sheer fabrication," a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

There has been frequent trouble in the Himalayan region, where Chinese troops imposed Communist control in 1950 and Buddhist monks and nuns have often been at the forefront.

Some 80 percent of women political prisoners were nuns and monks accounted for two thirds of male prisoners, the TIN report said.

The rate of detentions in Tibet outside Lhasa and in provinces bordering Tibet grew by almost 250 percent between 1987 and 1998, it said.

The number of detainees in Lhasa and the area around it rose by only 14 percent in the same period, the report said.

Chinese provinces that border Tibet, such as Qinghai and Yunnan, have sizable ethnic Tibetan populations.

The study attributed the widening area of protest to the central government's "Patriotic Education Campaign" launched in 1996, which expelled or forcibly removed many Buddhist monks and nuns from monasteries and sent them back to their original homes.

There were about 40,000 monks and nuns in the deeply religious region, according to official figures last year.

Of the 550 or so political prisoners currently detained, 53 percent had been tried in courts, TIN said.

The organization said it had no information on the legal process of the remaining 47 percent.

There had been no successful defenses or appeals, the report said.

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Last updated: 31-Mar-99