Tibetan Nun Succumbs to Torture Over Peaceful Protest Against ChinaMonday, 7 December 2009, 4:22 p.m.

An undated photo of Yangkyi Dolma

Dharamshala: A
Tibetan nun arrested by the Chinese government for taking part in the
peaceful protests in Karze in March 2009 has died in a hospital in
Chengdu, capital of China’s Sichuan province, apparently due to severe
torture by the prison guards, according to a reliable information
received by the Central Tibetan Administration.Yangkyi Dolma,
aged 33. who belonged to Lamdak monastery in Karze, Tibet, died around
2 pm on Saturday, 5 December 2009.  The dead body has not yet delivered
to her family members.According to sources, on 24 March this
year, Yangkyi Dolma and her colleague Sonam Yang, a nun aged 28, took
to the streets in Karze while chanting peaceful slogans such as “long
live His Holiness the Dalai Lama, invite His Holiness the Dalai Lama to
Tibet’, and demanded religious freedom and human rights in Tibet. The two also distributed pamphlets, following which they were arrested and severely beaten up by Chinese security forces. On
that same night at around 7 pm, the security personnel raided the
houses of the two nuns, and vandalised portrait of His Holiness the
Dalai Lama. They also threatened the family members of dire
consequences for taking part in the alleged separatist activities. On
the morning of 25 March, the officials of the Karze county summoned the
family members to their office for interrogation.However, the
whereabouts of the two nuns had remained unknown until on 24 August,
when the family members came to know only that the Karze Intermediate
People’s Court has passed its verdict and not what punishment was
pronounced.It was around 2 pm on last Saturday, 5 December,
that the family members came to know that Yangkyi Dolma has died in an
unnamed hospital in Chengdu.Yangkyi Dolma, daughter of Gedun
Dhargyal, joined the Lamdak monastery at the age of 17, and undertook
years of religious studies and spiritual retreats. Since
the peaceful against its repression in Tibet last year, the Chinese
government has resorted to arbitrary arrests and detentions of
Tibetans, and subjecting them to brutal beatings by the Public Security
Bureau and inhumane treatments in prisons. Many Tibetan political
prisoners have been physically and mentally traumatised due to lack of
proper diet and medical facility, which has resulted in their deaths.The
grave incidents of torture and deaths of Tibetans in Tibet have fully
exposed the lies of the Chinese authorities that they do not torture
Tibetans.