By JOE McDONALD
BEIJING, February 26 – The last of 14 Tibetan “singing nuns” was released Thursday from a Chinese prison, granted a sentence reduction after nearly 15 years behind bars, a U.S. activist said.
Phuntsog Nyidron left the Drapchi Prison in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, and was with her family, said John Kamm, president of the Duihua Foundation in San Francisco. Kamm, speaking from Hong Kong, said he was informed of the release by Chinese Foreign Ministry officials.
Phuntsog Nyidron’s sentence was due to run until March 2005, but she was granted a reduction, said Kamm, whose organization studies Chinese prisons. He has been involved in arranging the release of several jailed Chinese dissidents in recent years.
Kamm said Chinese officials noted that senior U.S. officials and members of Congress lobbied Beijing for Phuntsog Nyidron’s release.
“I was told the Chinese government was taking into account the strong views expressed by the (Bush) administration,” said Kamm, who was in Beijing last week. “They did definitely link this to their desire for good relations with the United States.”
Phuntsog Nyidron was cited in speeches on human rights by the U.S. ambassador to China, Clark T. Randt. Republican Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and other U.S. lawmakers also have written to China asking for her release, according to Kamm.
Phuntsog Nyidron was arrested at age 22 in 1989 on charges of “counterrevolutionary propaganda and incitement” and sentenced to eight years in prison.
In 1993, she and 13 other women became known as the “singing nuns” after they used a tape recorder smuggled into the prison to record songs about their love for their families and their homeland. Their sentences were extended after the tape was smuggled out of the prison.
The next-to-last nun, Lhamo Namdrol, was released in September.
Kamm said Phuntsog Nyidron’s release also might be linked to Chinese efforts to encourage an intermittent dialogue with the government of the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader.
Communist authorities publicly vilify the Dalai Lama as a subversive intent on breaking up China and winning Tibet’s independence but has held two rounds of talks in recent years with his emissaries.
Kamm said Chinese officials didn’t mention that in connection with Phuntsog Nyidron’s release. But he noted that both earlier sets of talks were preceded by the release of high-profile Tibetan prisoners.
“It’s possible that that’s also going on,” Kamm said, “but that was not said to me explicitly.”
Tibet activists say Phuntsog Nyidron’s sentence was unusually heavy because she had held a semiofficial position as leader of Buddhist chants at the tiny Michungri nunnery near Lhasa.
Tibet activists have said Phuntsog Nyidron was beaten and mistreated in prison, but Kamm said he couldn’t confirm that. He said he didn’t know yet whether she would return to her nunnery or be allowed to leave China for medical treatment.
