Tibetan nuns, Gyaltsen Drolkar and Namdrol Lhamo, who each spent more than a decade in prison for chanting Tibetan freedom slogans, will visit the UK between 23 February and 11 March 2006, as part of a campaign to stop torture in Tibet. Their visit will culminate at the commemoration of the Tibetan uprising of March 1959 against China's occupation.

The nuns will be speaking around the UK and will be meeting Government officials, MPs, journalists and Tibet supporters. They will be talking about their harrowing experience as political prisoners in Tibet. Gyaltsen Drolkar, describing the first days of her arrest in 1990 said, "There was a tree in the courtyard and I was hung up from it. They covered my face with my Chuba (Tibetan traditional skirt) so I could not see who was beating me. I was beaten up severely and then dropped to the floor. I was then taken to a small room where they used electric prods on me."

The nuns' tour takes place as the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) is preparing for its 62nd session where it will discuss Manfred Nowak's (the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture) report on his visit to China and Tibet in November/December 2005. The nuns' tour will highlight the need for the UN to act decisively and press China both for an end to the use of torture in Tibet's prisons, detention centres and labour-through-education camps and to promote dialogue on the future of Tibet.

"The preliminary findings of the Special Rapporteur on Torture are yet further evidence of what has been well documented by the Tibet Movement and human rights activists. Torture and ill-treatment are widespread and systematically used against political prisoners in Tibet," said Yael Weisz-Rind from Free Tibet Campaign. "The UN Commission on Human Rights must act now to instruct China to end all use of torture and bring to justice those responsible, and we urge the British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, to table a resolution on torture in Tibet and China at the forthcoming session of the UNCHR."

In his preliminary report Dr Nowak described "a palpable level of fear and self-censorship that he had not experienced in the course of his previous missions" and provided 'a catalogue' of torture methods used by China's authorities. Namdrol Lhamo recalls, "When I was beaten during the interrogation the officers said that I would be executed if I would continue calling for Tibet's independence. They also said I should not think of returning home but should think about my family and that majority of Tibetans do not wish for Tibet's independence. They said that the independent for Tibet is like a star in the sky during daytime."

Welcoming the nuns, Alice Speller from Students for a Free Tibet UK said, "As long as Tibet is occupied and Tibetans are persecuted in their own country young people around the world will continue their campaign for Tibet. Considering China's hosting of the 2008 Olympic Games, the international community should resolve this half a century of injustice."

Schedule of free public talks

Thursday 23 February, 6.00pm, London. Venue: SOAS
Friday 24 February, 5.00pm, Oxford. Venue: Faculty Room, Oriental Institute
Tuesday 28 February, 6.30pm, Bristol. Venue: talk & Losar party at Take 5 Cafe, Stolks Cross
Wednesday 1 March, 5.30pm, Swansea. Venue: Govinda's
Thursday 2 March, 5.00pm, Leeds. Venue: Conference Auditorium Lecture Theatre 2, Leeds University
Friday 3 March, 3.30pm, Nottingham. Venue: East Concourse Lounge, Portland building, Nottingham University (University Park campus)
Monday 6 March, Northampton. Daytime talk with Mayor
Wednesday 8 March, Cambridge.

NOTES TO EDITOR:

1. Visit to China and Tibet by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture
After more than a decade of negotiations the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Dr Manfred Nowak, completed his fact-finding visit to China, Tibet and Xinjiang in between 21 November and 2 December 2005. In a detailed statement the Special Rapporteur stated that he believes the practice of torture, though on the decline - particularly in urban areas - remains widespread in China. "In his interviews with detainees, the Special Rapporteur observed a palpable level of fear and self-censorship, which he had not experienced in the course of his previous missions. A considerable number of detainees did not express a willingness to speak with the Rapporteur, and several of those who did requested absolute confidentiality."

Although Dr Nowak recognised that the Chinese Government has undertaken a number of measures to tackle torture and commended individuals in China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs for their professionalism, cooperation and shared commitment to the objectives of the mission, he reported that other Ministries, including State Security and Public Security, attempted to obstruct or restrict his attempts at fact-finding. "The team were frequently under surveillance by intelligence personnel and a number of alleged victims and family members were intimidated by security personnel, placed under police surveillance, instructed not to meet the Special Rapporteur, or physically prevented from meeting with him."

The report speaks of some of the methods of torture used including: "beatings; use of electric shock batons; cigarette burns... submersion in pits of water or sewage; exposure to conditions of extreme heat or cold; being forced to maintain uncomfortable positions... deprivation of sleep, food or water; denial of medical treatment;... and suspension from overhead fixtures from handcuffs". The report goes on to describe techniques that have been given particular terminology such as "exhausting an eagle" where detainees are "forced to stand on a tall stool and be subjected to beatings until exhaustion".

Dr Nowak listed a number of serious shortcomings in China's efforts to control torture, including the lack of an independent monitoring mechanism of all places of detention and a functional complaints mechanism. In the Tibetan Autonomous Region, Dr Nowak was told that no complaint had been received since 2003. Dr Nowak is fully aware that this does not mean there were no incidences of torture in Drapchi Prison since 2003 and Free Tibet Campaign strongly urges him to visit Dharamsala, where prisoners released from Drapchi since 2003 are in a position to provide testimony concerning their treatment.

2. Background information on Gyaltsen Drolkar and Namdrol Lhamo

Gyaltsen Drolkar and Namdrol Lhamo, two Tibetan nuns who currently live in exile in Belgium, served long prison sentences for participating in pro-independence protests and shouting slogans such as "Free Tibet" and "Long Live His Holiness the Dalai Lama". In 1993, while in Drapchi Prison, the two recorded protest songs along with twelve other nuns. Consequently, their original sentences were extended by five to eight years.

Namdrol Lhamo was born in a small village in the Western Tibet. At a young age, she became a nun and later joined a nunnery in the outskirts of Lhasa, the capital city of Tibet. On 11 May 1992, Namdrol Lhamo, then aged 28, shouted "Free Tibet" in the heart of Lhasa City and was arrested immediately by Public Security Bureau agents. She was taken to Gutsa Detention Centre where she was interrogated and tortured for almost two months.

Namdrol Lhamo was later taken to the People's Intermediate Court and was sentenced to six years imprisonment for "counter revolutionary actions". In the same year, after experiencing severe interrogation and beatings, she was transferred to Drapchi Prison where she spent the next six years. In 1993, for recording freedom songs with her inmates, Namdrol Lhamo's sentence was extended by five more years.

Gyaltsen Drolkar was born and raised in a nomadic family in the east of Lhasa City. She joined a nunnery in Lhasa when she was 18 years old. In 1990 during an opera performance in Norbulingka, the summer palace of the Dalai Lama, Gyaltsen Drolkar participated in a peaceful demonstration with 12 other nuns from different nunneries around Lhasa. She was beaten up and arrested by Chinese soldiers. Later she was taken to Gutsa Detention Centre where she was interrogated and made to stand in the sun for hours. She was forced to confess through maltreatment and electric prod shocks. Gyaltsen Drolkar was kept in Gutsa for four months without trial. She later received four years and then was transferred to Drapchi Prison. In 1993 her sentence was extended by 8 years for recording freedom songs.

Gyaltsen Drolkar was released in March 2002. Namdrol Lhamo finished her prison term and was released in September 2003. Both of them have been through military exercises while they were in Drapchi. They also participated in the May 1st and 4th demonstrations in 1998 in Drapchi. They escaped from occupied Tibet in December 2004.