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Rukhag 3: The Nuns of Drapchi PrisonPalden Choedron of Shugsib Nunnery, the first of the group to be released when her sentence expired in October 1998, wasdetained a few months later as she tried to flee Tibet. She is reportedly serving a three year administrative sentence at Trisam.Gyaltsen Choezom of Garu Nunnery and Lhundrub Zangmo of Mechungri were released in 1999 at the end of their terms,but not before they were involved in one more protest, the Unit 3 hunger strike of April 1996. The other 11 nuns currentlyremain incarcerated in Drapchi’s “old rukhag 3”.12
Female political prisoners at Drapchi: the buildup of Unit 3C. Rising numbers, martial discipline, Unit 3 partition, and hungerstrikesi. 1994: PAP introduce military-style drillsThroughout the first half of the 1990s, female political prisoner numbers continued to rise rapidly. At the beginning of 1995there were just over 100 women imprisoned for political offences in Drapchi, four times as many as three years earlier whenthe 25 inmates of Unit 3 were beaten at the time of Tibetan New Year. The prison authorities sought new methods to asserttheir authority and pressure the women to reform. A number of reports have reached TIN over the past years describingdebilitating sessions of military-style drill supervised by the prison’s garrison of PAP. The demands of the drill instructorsproved extremely difficult, at times impossible, for weakened prisoners to fulfill. Rinchen Choenyi explains the deceptivesimplicity of the format:“At the time of this exercise the prisoners should act exactly like the soldiers who guide them. If they are not ableto exactly copy the movements then they are beaten badly.” 29Most accounts of the injurious routine focus on the period following 1995, but an account by Mechungri nun TrinleyChoedron, detained for demonstrating in 1992, held in Unit 3 and released in 1996, asserts that the sessions began in 1994:“[A]fter some time, the People's Armed Police came and then they said they were going to teach us military drills.During the drills, they would beat us a lot, much more than when we were first beaten at the time of interrogation.In winter we had to work, but in summer, starting from around the fourth Tibetan month until the ninth Tibetanmonth [approximately June through November], we had to undergo this drilling. It started sometime in 1994. [...]One has to get up at six o'clock in the morning, then run three rounds, but that's not considered a part of this drill.You are then given breakfast, and then you start to drill. I think it starts at around 7:00 and goes until 12:00 in themorning. Then at 12:00 you eat your lunch, then you have some free time. Then it starts again at 2:00 o'clock,mid-day, and from then, there is no definite time. Sometimes it finishes at around dusk. Sometimes it goes until2:00 o'clock in the morning, the next morning.” 30All the reports of the military-style drills share certain characteristics: alternation between extended periods of exertion andperiods of enforced motionlessness, usually in conjunction with exposure to sun, rain, or cold. One former prisoner providesmore detail about the sessions as they were first carried out:“We had to stand upright and they would put a newspaper under our arms [...]. They would then pull our hands up,and at that time, if we couldn't stand straight and still, then they would beat us. Sometimes, they would come frombehind and kick us on the backs of our legs, and then at that time we would definitely fall, or falter, and when wedid so, we would be beaten again. Sometimes we would have to stand in the sunshine for about two hours, very[straight], with a book on our head. We were not allowed to let the book fall. And then, sometimes, if it was hailing,they would ask us to lift our faces up towards the sky until the hail stopped. At times, somebody would faint or fall.But even if we called for help, they would not come and help, and no one would be allowed to help the person whohad fallen. Sometimes they would beat up one or two prisoners so badly, and because they are PAP, they are trainedto hit so hard that sometimes the person would be smashed against a wall, sometimes even throwing up blood, but13
Page 4 and 5: Tibet Information NetworkTibet Info
Page 8 and 9: Table of Contents1. Introduction ..
Page 10 and 11: Image 15: Gyabdrag Nunnery, in the
Page 12: Rukhag 3: The Nuns of Drapchi Priso
Page 15 and 16: Female political prisoners at Drapc
Page 21: Female political prisoners at Drapc
Page 37 and 38: Unit 3 and the Drapchi protests of
Page 69 and 70: Conclusion4. ConclusionThe women no
Page 71 and 72: Appendices5. AppendicesPrisoner lis
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Appendices500Tibetan political pris
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List 2: Drapchi Prison: Unit 3 nuns
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TIN# status code name lay name det.
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List 4: Female political prisoners
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TIN # status code name lay name det
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TIN# status code name lay name det.
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List 8c: Male Tibetan political pri
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List 10: Female political prisoners
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4 495-0442 REL Ngawang Tenzin Yangd
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95-0074 REL Tsultrim Choedron Tseri
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EndnotesPrefecture, to the west of
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Endnotes40. TIN Doc 399 names the d
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Endnotes75. TIN Doc 39976. TIN Doc
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EndnotesNgawang Sungrab was taken t
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Endnotes159. TIN Doc 1(sd). Sonam T
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Images6. ImagesA. Nuns and nunnerie
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ImagesExtended sentences, currently
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ImagesImage 13: Chubsang Nunnery, o
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ImagesImage 15: Gyabdrag Nunnery, i
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ImagesImage 16b: Mechungri Nunnery,
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ImagesImage 18: Shar Bumpa Nunnery,
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ImagesB. Drapchi PrisonImage 20: Dr
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ImagesImage 21: Drapchi Prison, lat
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ImagesImage 23: Drapchi Prison, are
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ImagesImage 30: Lhasa Prison (forme
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ImagesImage 32: new prison in Sangy
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ImagesImage 34: Trisam Re-education
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127Images
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