Tsering

Tsering is a 38-year-old Tibetan woman from near Lhasa. She is a former nun. She escaped from Tibet to pursue studies in India in 2003. In 2006, when she found out that her father was unwell, she decided to go back to Tibet to care for him. After two months with her parents she planned to return to India.

Whilst trying to escape across the border from Tibet to India in 2006 Tsering was detained by border security along with five others including two children. They were held in a border security facility.

For the first five days of her year-long detention Tsering was kept in a small unlit cell without water or bedding. She was fed bread and tea twice a day. She was interrogated numerous times. During the interrogations she was beaten, slapped, kicked and shocked with the use of electric batons. She would often lose consciousness as a result of torture. Tsering was accused of being a “slave" to the Dalai Lama and spying for the Tibetan Government in Exile.

After five days Tsering was moved to a police detention centre where she was held for 25 days. Her cell was completely dark and airless save for a small hole in the door through which small amounts of food and a bucket for waste were passed. The interrogations continued, although the beatings were less frequent.

Tsering was then taken to a re-education through labour camp. She was kept in solitary confinement in a tiny cell where her left arm and left leg were shackled to the floor. She had to go to the toilet, eat and sleep where she lay for four days. She was forced to do hard labour until she was hospitalised with kidney problems and water on the lungs as a result of long periods with her arms suspended above her head and beatings to her chest.

At this point, a year after her initial detention, she was released. Chinese authorities often release detainees when they are in danger of dying whilst in detention in order to manage statistics of deaths in detention.

Tsering was never charged with any crime.

For two years she then lived with her family under close surveillance by the authorities.  After the spring protests of 2008 the intrusions by the authorities grew unbearable and Tsering made a successful escape across the border in 2009. She continues to suffer kidney and back pain and psychological problems as a result of the torture she suffered in Tibet.




Watch Tsering’s testimony read by Juliet Stevenson.