Expressing the Sense of the House of Representatives Regarding Several Individuals Who Are Being Held as Prisoners of Conscience by the Chinese Government for Their Involvement in Efforts to End the Chinese Occupation of Tibet

Resolution

By: Tom Udall

Date: July 9, 2002

Source: Udall, Tom. "Expressing the Sense of the House of Representatives Regarding Several Individuals Who are Being Held as Prisoners of Conscience by the Chinese Government for Their Involvement in Efforts to End the Chinese Occupation of Tibet." Washington, D.C.: 107th Congress, July 9, 2002.

About the Author: Democratic Representative Tom Udall of New Mexico has represented New Mexico's third district since 1999 with a focus on civil liberties, the environment, and veteran's affairs.

INTRODUCTION

In 1949, the new Communist government of China chose to invade neighboring Tibet. Tibet had been a free, sovereign nation since 1911; the new Chinese government claimed that Tibet was merely a province of China, and that the Tibetan government was a "feudal regime." The fourteenth Dalai Lama—the spiritual and political leader of the Tibetans—was only fourteen years old, with Tibet under the control of a Regent until the Dalai Lama reached the age of 18. Shortly after the Chinese invasion, the Dalai Lama was made the full head of state with complete political powers.

In 1959, after nearly ten years of increasingly invasive Chinese control over Tibet, tensions escalated, a Tibetan guerilla movement used violence against Chinese soldiers, and the Chinese government ordered bombings and attacks that killed more than eighty-six thousand Tibetans. In March 1959, the Dalai Lama escaped from Tibet wearing a disguise; his fifteen-day trip from Tibet's capital city Lhasa to northern India was dangerous and covert; Tibetans did not know for two weeks whether he was dead or alive.

By 1960, the twenty-five-year-old Dalai Lama had set up a government in exile in India, leaving six million Tibetans in his homeland. Over time a steady trickle of Tibetan refugees settled in India, Nepal, and western Europe and the United States. Many of the refugees were monks and religious teachers, and they spread the teaching of Buddhism and and knowledge of Tibetan history and culture to regions that had previously known little about them. In part because of this, international sentiment turned against the Chinese government and in favor of a free Tibet.

The Chinese government reportedly imprisoned tens of thousands of Tibetans in the 1950s. Sentenced for opposition to the Chinese government or for "local nationalism," a second wave of imprisonments from Tibetan revolts in 1987–1989 included many nuns and monks who chose to peacefully demonstrate against the Chinese government. As of 2001, there were three hundred documented prisoners of conscience in Tibet; the numbers had dwindled as a result of completed sentences, early release, or death.

In 1989, Phuntsog Nyidron, then twenty-four years old, was one of fourteen Buddhist nuns imprisoned for peacefully protesting against the Chinese occupation of Tibet. Sentenced to nine years in the Drapchi prison, Nyidron was tortured while incarcerated. In 1993, audio tapes of the nuns singing songs and chants in praise of the Dalai Lama were smuggled from the prison. When the tapes were released to the public and the Chinese government was pressured to release the nuns, the government responded by charging the nuns with "spreading counter-revolutionary propaganda" and extended their sentences.

PRIMARY SOURCE

       IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    JULY 9, 2002

Mr. UDALL of New Mexico submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on International Relations

                    RESOLUTION

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding several individuals who are being held as prisoners of conscience by the Chinese Government for their involvement in efforts to end the Chinese occupation of Tibet.

Whereas for more than 1,000 years Tibet has maintained a sovereign national identity that is distinct from the national identity of China;

Whereas armed forces of the People's Republic of China invaded Tibet in 1949 and 1950 and have occupied it since then;

Whereas according to the United States Department of State and international human rights organizations, the Government of the People's Republic of China continues to commit widespread and well-documented human rights abuses in China and Tibet;

Whereas the People's Republic of China has yet to demonstrate its willingness to abide by internationally accepted norms of freedom of belief, expression, and association by repealing or amending laws and decrees that restrict those freedoms;

Whereas the Chinese Government has detained several nuns, monks, and individuals as prisoners of conscience for their efforts in speaking out against the Chinese occupation of Tibet;

Whereas on October 14, 1989, Phuntsog Nyidron, a Tibetan Buddhist nun, and 5 other nuns from the Michungri Nunnery were arrested in Lhasa after chanting some slogans and marching in a procession as part of a peaceful demonstration that they organized to protest the Chinese occupation of Tibet;

Whereas Nyidron and the other nuns were kicked, beaten, and given electric shocks on their hands, shoulders, breasts, tongue, and face at the time of the arrest;

Whereas 4 years later, Nyidron and 13 other nuns sang and recorded songs about Tibetan independence in front of prison guards;

Whereas the Chinese Government determined that the public distribution of these songs constituted 'spreading counter-revolutionary propaganda' and on October 8, 1993, extended Nyidron's sentence by 8 years;

Whereas Nyidron is now serving a 17-year sentence, one of the longest reported sentences of any female prisoner of conscience in Tibet;

Whereas Phuntsog Nyidron was awarded the Reebok Human Rights Award in 1995;

Whereas Phuntsog Nyidron is just one of many individuals whom the Chinese Government has held as a prisoner of conscience;

Whereas the Chinese Government continues to imprison individuals as prisoners of conscience for involvement in efforts to end the Chinese occupation of Tibet; and

Whereas the Chinese Government continues to exert control over religious and cultural institutions in Tibet, abusing human rights through torture, arbitrary arrest, and detention without public trial of Tibetans who peace-fully expressed their political or religious views: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the Government of the People's Republic of China should, as a gesture of good will and in order to promote human rights, release prisoners of conscience such as Phuntsog Nyidron.

SIGNIFICANCE

Representative Tom Udall, a Democrat from New Mexico, wrote this resolution for the United States House of Representatives in addition to cosponsoring a bill on Tibetan policy. On February 2, 2004, the resolution passed as House Resolution 157 with sixty-six cosponsors. It passed unanimously in the House of Representatives.

Twenty-four days later, Chinese authorities released Phuntsog Nyidron from Drapchi, one day after a United States Department of State report characterized China's treatment of Tibetan political prisoners as a gross human rights violation. The report detailed summary executions, torture, lack of legal representation, arbitrary arrest, and extensions of sentences without due process.

Phuntsog Nyidron's release after fifteen years in prison was hailed as a diplomatic success; Udall's resolution, combined with the State Department report, was believed to have put enough pressure on China to compel her release. In addition, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights was set to convene the following month, in March 2004; China's choice to release Phuntsog Nyidron helped to quell complaints about the treatment of political prisoners in Tibet.

Phuntsog Nyidron was released to a home in Lhasa where she was kept under strict surveillance, denied a passport, and denied appropriate medical care for a kidney condition. On March 15, 2006, Phuntsog Nyidron was released to the International Campaign for Tibet staff and delivered to the United States, where she had an audience with the Dalai Lama and received medical care. Her release came one month before Chinese President Hu Jintao's summit with United States President George W. Bush.

At the time of Phuntsog Nyidron's release, human rights researchers estimated than 150 Tibetan political prisoners remained imprisoned by Chinese authorities, and approximately seventy-five percent of those prisoners were Buddhist monks and nuns convicted for peaceful demonstrations against the Chinese government.

FURTHER RESOURCES

Books

Avedon, John. In Exile from the Land of Snows. New York: Harper Perennial, 1997.

Lama, Dalai. My Land and My People: The Original Autobiography of His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Tibet. New York: Warner Books, 1997.

Shakya, Tsering. The Dragon in the Land of Snows: A History of Modern Tibet Since 1947. New York: Penguin, 2000.

Web sites

Human Rights Watch. "China and Tibet." 〈http://hrw.org/〉 (accessed May 5, 2006).

The Office of Tibet. "Invasion and Illegal Annexation of Tibet: 1949–1951." February 2, 1996. 〈http://www.tibet.com/WhitePaper/white2.html〉 (accessed May 5, 2006).