Publications

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Racial Discrimination in Tibet (2000)

Discrimination in Healthcare

Denial of Treatment

It has also been reported by many Tibetan refugees that those people who incur an injury during a demonstration, or some kind of activity deemed "political" by the local authorities, are subsequently denied treatment for their injury - even if it was inflicted by Chinese police. Of the 69 reported deaths from torture received by TCHRD since 1986, 18 of them died after being denied medical treatment. Others have meanwhile developed permanent maiming from untreated injuries.

Sonam Tsering, a 20 year-old former monk, was arrested in 1994 for participating in a peaceful demonstration in the Barkhor area of Lhasa. "I was later sentenced to four years imprisonment. Due to the rigorous physical labour and sporadic torture I received in this institution, I became very sick. But when I requested medical treatment from the officials, a prison guard hit me three times on the head with a steel baton and told me my sickness was a lie. I had to continue every day feeling terrible, but there was nothing I could do. The only way to get medical attention in prison is if you are on the verge of death - then you become a responsibility."

Jampel Thinley, aged 28 and a monk of Chamdo monastery in "TAR", was arrested in April 1997. He was charged with pasting ‘counter-revolutionary' posters on the outer wall of the monastery, and reportedly received regular beatings and torture while in prison. Only when he was close to death did they admit him to the Chamdo People's Hospital, but four hours after his removal from prison, Jampel died. His body was later returned to the monastery without any explanation for his death. At the sky burial, monks later reported that his body had turned red and blue both inside and out.

Yeshi Samten was a 22 year-old monk of Ganden Monastery. He was arrested on May 6, 1996 when a protest against Chinese re-education sessions was held in the monastery. While in prison he reportedly received frequent torture but received no medical care for his deteriorating health. As a result, when he was released exactly 2 years after his arrest, he died six days later.

Lobsang Dolma is a former political prisoner who fled Tibet in September 1998. While in Drapchi prison in Lhasa in 1995 she fell seriously ill. After first being denied treatment by the prison doctor, she was taken to hospital. The hospital doctor recommended that she undergo an operation, but the head of her prison unit refused, stating that she could wait until the end of her sentence in two years time. Eventually, her parents insisted that she have the operation, and it was finally conducted on the condition that Dolma's parents pay for the operation and that she return to prison immediately after. Back in prison, Dolma was then forced to return to the manual labour with the other prisoners, exacerbating her condition and impeding her recovery.

Kunchok Tsomo spent three years in prison with an untreated broken arm. She incurred the injury at the time of her arrest in May 1993 when she was hit with a rifle butt during a demonstration. Her condition was aggravated by forced continual use, as she was given no relief from her prison duties. After her release, a doctor diagnosed that flesh had grown around and inside the broken bone, and her condition to this day remains poor and in need of frequent medical treatment.