A Tibetan’s Brave Escape from the Chinese Regime with Namkyi

Namkyi, exiled Tibetan activist and former political prisoner, addressed the 17th Annual Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy on February 18th, 2025.

Full Prepared Remarks (Translated from Tibetan):

May his Holiness, the Dalai Lama, live long. Let his Holiness the Dalai Lama return to Tibet. Freedom for Tibet.

I am an ordinary nomad woman from the Ngaba region of Tibet. On 21 October 2015, my cousin sister Tenzin Dolma and I staged a peaceful protest march. At the time, both of us were 15 years of age. When holding large photos of his Holiness, the Dalai Lama, like this one, we called for his Holiness, the Dalai Lama to be allowed to return to Tibet, praying for their long life and called for freedom in Tibet.

I was immediately detained by the Chinese authorities and then they took me in a room where I was detained for about six days during which I was tortured. They subjected us to torture where they made us face heaters, the heaters at extremely high temperatures and then interrogated us. 

They asked which exiled organisations we were linked with, so in that small room, they tortured us, beat us for about 6 days and nights. I felt that if I was a meat, I would have been like an overcooked meat and I would have been a melting butter in minutes. So, for one year and one month, me and my cousin sisters, we never saw each other.

We were put in separate rooms and interrogated. Almost every week they would come and tell us his Holiness has done nothing for you, look at your status right now. What does it help that his Holiness could not do anything right now or help you? You are separatists causing trouble to the nation, betraying the nation and it’s of serious crime, they told me.

So for more than a year and a month, me and my sister, we never saw each other. I was never allowed to talk to another prisoner. I was in solitary confinement, whereas the other Chinese prisoners, they could speak freely to one another. They were about 12 in the same cell. And then they would tell me, does it help now, that you are holding his Holiness, the Dalai Lama’s picture? 

And the cold freezing winter, we had very frail clothing that I really felt extremely cold. Like I sometimes couldn’t feel my fingers because of the freezing cold. The food was never enough and it lacked nutrition and it was extremely poor. Despite the fact that I was made to work for hours and hours. I was taken to the female prison for female prisoners which is one of the biggest ones in China after I was sentenced.

In that prison, there were other Tibetan prisoners, however because of my identity as a Tibetan and for the reason that I was in jail, I had to face so much discrimination in the prison. This is not just a story about me, but of thousands of Tibetans who have suffered and continue to suffer in jails of China under Chinese repressive policies. 

In the jail, we had to wake up at around six in the morning and until eight or nine or even later at night, we have to work. We have to do forced labor in jail. I was made to work to very thin copper wire and they would never even let us turn our heads to either side. We have to sit for hours and hours that I would feel the whole of my body in pain. And sometimes I would get injuries to my bottom because of too much sitting.

Even though the food was never filling enough that we never felt that we have eaten something, however they added something in the food that within a month of two of coming in the prison, prisoners would start looking more plump and swollen because they would add something in the food so that we would appear as if we were getting enough food in the prison and from the outside, we would look healthy, for others. 

They called us, his Holiness the Dalai Lama’s people, they called us as the Dalai Lama’s clique and they made sure we would never cross our ways even though we were in the same compound. I was also made to go under compulsory education where they made me read and learn by heart the Chinese constitution and other CCP laws. 

They wouldn’t let me sleep because they said I have to learn this by heart and at that time I didn’t know or speak Chinese. However, they would not let me sleep and instead made me read and learn those Chinese rules and books. 

In the prison, for other prisoners, they allowed a visitation. I remember once when my father had to show his thumb in a pleading manner and pleaded to the prison authorities to let my father see me. But, for Tibetans, they are never allowed family visitation hours. The Chinese prisoners could come during those visitation hours almost every month and see their family members in jail. But, because we were Tibetans, we were deprived of that right. 

So, once, at that time when my father pleaded and kneeled in front of the jail officers, and they let him see me. But, only for a few minutes. It only lasted for five minutes. As soon as we started speaking on the phone and asked each other how we were doing. He asked me and I said I was fine. I asked him how he was and at that moment the jail officers snatched the phone away from us and said we cannot speak in Tibetan. But, I told them that my father doesn’t speak Chinese. However, they said we cannot meet further.

In the prison, every once in two months, we would have a recreational event where the prisoners would be allowed to rest. However, for Tibetan prisoners, even on those events and those days, we were made to work continuously.

On 21st October, 2018, after completing our prisoner terms, me and my sister Tenzin Dolma were released. But, they had called the Chinese police and my village police officers to come to the prison to take me. So, the county police and my village police took me to my village police station where they detained me for one more week because they said they wanted to make sure I will not protest or do any such thing in the future. 

And, when I said that I cannot say anything, they called my family’s, not just my family’s and my parents’, but the heads of my village to the police station and made them sign documents saying they will be responsible if I stage any such protests in the future. So I had only two options. Either I had to die in Tibet under Chinese oppression, or I had to flee my homeland.

Even though I was released, it was just my body that was out of prison, but I was being restricted in every way possible. Whether it was meeting my friends, going to a nearby place, or tracing my phone calls, I was being surveillance and watched 24 hours. And that is why in 2023, I decided to leave my country.

The reason for leaving my home country is that I had the firm belief that if I come outside, in the free country, I would definitely be able to find people and governments who would listen to what I have to say. That we have no freedom in Tibet. We have no freedom of religion, of language. Freedom for Tibet is what I believe in and what I call for. And that is why I came into exile. I had the honor to meet many members of the United Nations to speak the truth.

I had the opportunity, even today, I thank the organizers for giving me this platform to share the real situation in Tibet where hundreds of thousands of Tibetans continue to suffer even to this day. The Chinese government is controlling Tibet under such tight oppression and surveillance. So, it is extremely important that we really see the real situation, the extremely dire situation in Tibet.

So I ask you all to consider to support Tibet in fulfilling the aspirations of the Tibetan people, to see his Holiness the Dalai Lama’s return to Tibet. Long live his Holiness the Dalai Lama. Freedom for Tibet. Long live his Holiness the Dalai Lama. 

Thank you everyone, I am Namkyi and this is not just my life story, but the story of thousands of Tibetans.