Song of sadness in our hearts We sing this to our brothers and friends What we Tibetans feel in this darkness will pass The food does not sustain body or soul Beatings impossible to forget This suffering inflicted upon us May no others suffer like this... “May No Others Suffer Like This” -Nun’s Song, Drapchi Prison- Photo: © Tibet Information Network  Ngawang Sandrol will soon be the longest imprisoned Tibetan female political prisoner. Sangdrol was first arrested in 1981 at the age of ten, while protesting for Tibetan freedom. She was arrested again at the age of thirteen, while participating in another demonstration led by nuns. As a juvenile, Sangrol could not be tried, but she was severely beaten and abused while held in custody for nine months. Upon release, Sangrol was forbidden to return to her nunnery. At the age of fifteen, she attempted to hold a peaceful protest with other nuns and monks. She was arrested and sentenced to three years in jail. During her imprisonment, Sangdrol made a tape recording, which documented the abuse she and her fellow nuns had endured. As punishment for this, she was sentenced to an extra six years. Sangrol's sentence was repeatedly extended over the next several years because she "exercised her right to freedom of opinion". She protested the poor conditions in prison by refusing to make her bed or keep her room tidy, and was forced to stand in the rain. In defiance, she began chanting, "Free Tibet." She was taken inside and beaten. A fellow inmate who escaped described Sangdrol as, "deteriorated due to severe torture, and her right leg had been seriously injured". Ngawang Sangdrol’s third sentence extension was handed down by the Lhasa Municipal Intermediate People’s Court in October 1998. She will now not be released until 2013, making her total sentence 21 years. The recent extension appears to be a result of her involvement in protests in May 1998 at Drapchi prison linked to the visit of a European Union ambassadorial delegation, and in additional individual protests later in the same year. She was reportedly severely beaten as a punishment for shouting slogans in support of independence and the Dalai Lama in July and then again a month or two later, according to a reliable source who is now outside Tibet. The same source states that Ngawang Sangdrol was "kicked and beaten and they [prison guards] stamped on her head" after she shouted the slogans late last year at Drapchi prison. Two other nuns, Ngawang Choezom from Chubsang nunnery and 31-year old Phuntsog Nyidrol from Michungri nunnery, are reported to have been severely beaten at the same time. There are serious fears for the current health and safety of Phuntsog Nyidrol, who is serving 17 years in prison following her involvement in a peaceful protest in Lhasa in 1989, and who reportedly attempted to protect Ngawang Sangdrol during these beatings. Friends and relatives were reportedly prevented from visiting Ngawang Sangdrol in prison following the demonstrations in Drapchi prison in May last year. These protests consisted of two incidents on 1 and 4 May 1998 in which both criminal and political prisoners shouted slogans in support of the Dalai Lama and of Tibetan independence during meetings at the prison to mark the visit of a European Union "troika" delegation. The 4 May protest coincided with the visit to Drapchi of the EU ambassadors, though it is still not clear whether the protest took place before or after their visit. Prison officials had selected representatives from different units, including more than 60 monks, to attend a meeting on this date when prisoners suddenly started shouting "Free Tibet" slogans. According to unconfirmed reports, political prisoners who were being held in cells nearby joined in with the shouting. Prison officials retaliated by beating political prisoners and inmates involved were isolated from other prisoners in solitary confinement cells. Six nuns, three monks and one layperson reportedly died following torture and beatings at the prison. Ngawang Sangdrol and several other political prisoners received particularly severe beatings according to reliable reports, suggesting that she may have been considered a ring-leader of the demonstrations. When other prisoners were once again allowed to receive visitors in the prison in July 1998, Ngawang Sangdrol and a few other key political prisoners continued to be denied visits and were not allowed to receive any gifts, such as food and clothing, from relatives, according to a former political prisoner who is now in exile. Ngawang Sangdrol has received the longest total sentence of any female political prisoner in Tibet. The Chinese authorities have never given exact details of her various sentence extensions to governments or UN bodies that have raised her case.   Most of this information supplied by TIN Update 2001 The following is the latest information we have on Ngawang Sangdrol (and include extracts from Rukhag 3: The Nuns of Drapchi Prison, Steven D.Marshall, London: TIN, 2000). We have nothing very recent on her current condition. The following is based on the (very good) information we had in October 2000 when rukhag 3 was published. Her sentence extension after the May 1998 protests: (from rukhag 3) "An official source asserts that the Lhasa People's Intermediate Court, in November 1998, set the extension at three years and created a new sentence expiry date in 2013, indicating a 21 year total [TIN Doc 16(tz)]. Other reports put her new total sentence at 22 years." The latest information (as reported in rukhag 3) indicates Ngawang Sangdrol was not placed in solitary following the May 1998 protests. According to reports she would have been put in a solitary cell had her condition not been so serious. All prisoners in the two female political prisoner units were however under lock down conditions from 7 June (following the deaths of the nuns) until summer 1999 (this was where the initial confusion about "solitary" came from - the nuns were all locked in their cells. 19 are known to have been put in solitary cells. Ngawang Sangdrol was not one of them). Those in the same unit as Ngawang Sangdrol ("old" rukhag 3) were locked in their cells from their 4 May protest onward - every aspect of daily life was confined to their cell and there was no communication allowed between cells (12 prisoners were put in each cell). They were given work, food and a bucket to use as a toilet inside their cells. Informers were put in the cells along with the political prisoners. Ngawang Sangdrol was in a cell with, amongst others, Choeying Gyaltsen and Phuntsog Nyidrol. Prison visits were also suspended. Ngawang Sangdrol's visiting rights were reportedly not reinstated until June 1999 (other prisoners had had this right renistated before this). The following paras, describing her condition, are taken from "Rukhag 3": "Ngawang Sangdrol's physical condition has become a matter of alarm for her prison comrades. Choeying Gyaltsen was Ngawang Sangdrol's cell mate until mid-1999 and is therefore in a unique position to offer a more nuanced interpretation of her friend's current condition and state of mind. She descibes a pattern which has proved costly: "'Ngawang Sangdrol is always among the first volunteers if there are disturbances in Drapchi. She gets a lot of beatings. She was very young at first, the youngest [of us all], at the time of arrest. Even after she was arrested she is the first to do things when there are incidents [in prison]. Then her sentence was increased and increased, and now she is [23], and now her sentence is 22 years [sic]. Because of so many beatings, her head and body are all damaged.' [TIN Doc 397] "The divergence between her physical and mental condition is conspicuous. She is afflicted by multiple, chronic ailments; the most commonly mentioned are recurrent, severe headache, stomach and intestinal illness, and what Tibetans refer to as "heart disease", the descriptions of which suggest it may be an acute stress-related disorder. The acute headaches are portrayed in a manner which suggest they, too, may be exacerbated by stress. Her sound character is in contrast to her weakened condition. "'She is an example for us. Her mind is very good. She hasn't lost her mind or anything. She doesn't have this illness that [makes her] say all sorts of things. She has many headaches when she is not happy, from blows to her head. When the head of the rukhag says something to her, she gives an exact reply. She is able to give excellent replies to whatever they say to her. She isn't like someone who has lost her mind. She is well educated. If they ask her about the books we have to study, she is able to give very good answers. We are not like that. She was well educated before she came to prison. We are not that good in language like her, so we are not able to answer in that perfect way, so directly. But she had been to big schools before she came to prison, so she is able to give perfect answers. If you are not well educated, then you don't know the answer. They ask these political questions, you know. She is able to answer these questions very well. She gives replies to which they can't give back any answer. And so in this way, her sentence has been increased. [TIN Doc 397] "[...] According to Choeying Gyaltsen, Ngawang Sangdrol does not believe she will survive her detention and "has decided that she will die in prison" [TIN Doc 397]. In the presence of a political model that characterises dissent as a destabilising corruption of normal order, Ngawang Sangdrol may continue to attract harm at the hands of the authorities." Jane Caple Tibet Information Network