Imprisoned Nun Arrives in U.S. From China
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
BEIJING – A Tibetan Buddhist nun who spent 15 years in prison on political charges was allowed to leave China and flew to America yesterday, an American activist announced.
Phuntsog Nyidron was released from prison in 2004 but her movements were restricted and she was refused a passport until recently, according to the president of the Dui Hua Foundation in San Francisco, John Kamm.
Phuntsog Nyidron’s departure from China comes ahead of a visit to Washington by President Hu of China. But Mr. Kamm said he didn’t know whether the decision to let her leave was connected to Mr. Hu’s trip.
Mr. Kamm noted the trip comes in the midst of an American-Chinese human rights dialogue and changes to the U.N. system of human rights monitoring, and said both might have influenced the decision.
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 Drapchi Prison in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa 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.
