28-year-old Tibetan nun, Ngawang Lochoe, died in Drapchi Prison on 5 February 2001, just a year before completion of her 10-year prison sentence. Ngawang Lochoe was arrested along with five other nuns, all from Nyen Nunnery, for taking part in a peaceful demonstration in Lhasa on 14 May 1992. They were charged with "instigating counter-revolutionary activities and propaganda" and Lochoe was sentenced to five years imprisonment at the age of 19. For seven months before her sentencing, Lochoe and the nuns suffered brutal interrogations and inhumane treatment at the Gutsa Detention Centre. Three of the nuns are still languishing in Drapchi Prison while two have presumably been released in 1998.

In Drapchi Prison, Lochoe and 13 other nuns were involved in recording songs and messages to their families and friends on a smuggled tape recorder in June 1993. When prison authorities discovered their clandestine activity, the nuns were given additional prison sentences. Lochoe's sentence was extended by another five years, bringing her total sentence to 10 years.

Two weeks prior to her death, in January 2001, prison officials prevented a family member from seeing Lochoe during a prison visit.

Lochoe died immediately after prison officials transferred her to the police hospital near Drapchi Prison on 5 February. Lochoe's relatives were informed the same day that she was not well and had been admitted to hospital. Upon reaching the hospital, the relatives were shown the dead body of Lochoe. They were not informed the cause of the death. Fellow nun political prisoners, who made their journey to exile last year, said, "Unless Lochoe met with some misfortune, it is not likely that she would die a sudden death. She was a healthy woman with no history of prolonged illness in Prison."

"Lochoe's sudden death is highly questionable. Preventing her relatives from seeing her and providing medication only at the last minute, indicates deliberate foul play in the Chinese authorities' treatment of Tibetan political prisoners," commented Lobsang Nyandak, executive director of the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy. "We keep receiving information about untimely demises of political prisoners in Tibet. China has totally failed to uphold the provisions of the UN Convention Against Torture to which it is a signatory. As of now a total of 72 Tibetan political prisoners have died directly as a result of torture since China ratified the Convention."

Ngawang Lochoe was from Nyen Nunnery in Toelung Dechen County in Lhasa Municipality.

Of the 451 known Tibetan political prisoners held in various Chinese prisons in Tibet, approximately 200 are held in Drapchi Prison, including 32 female political prisoners out of whom 29 are nuns.

Since 1987, 13 nuns have reportedly died while in custody or shortly after release due to torture in prisons.