![PaldenGyatso](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/PaldenGyatso.jpg)
Palden Gyatso (1933, Panam,
Tibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...
– 30 November 2018,
Dharamshala
Dharamshala (; also spelled Dharamsala) is the winter capital of Himachal Pradesh, India. It serves as administrative headquarters of the Kangra district after being relocated from Kangra, a city located away from Dharamshala, in 1855.
The ...
,
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
, bo, དཔལ་ལྡན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་ dpal ldan rgya mtsho) was a
Tibetan Buddhist
Tibetan Buddhism (also referred to as Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Lamaism, Lamaistic Buddhism, Himalayan Buddhism, and Northern Buddhism) is the form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet and Bhutan, where it is the dominant religion. It is also in majo ...
monk. Arrested for protesting during the
Chinese invasion of Tibet
Tibet came under the control of People's Republic of China (PRC) after the Government of Tibet signed the Seventeen Point Agreement which the 14th Dalai Lama ratified on 24 October 1951, but later repudiated on the grounds that he rendered his ...
, he spent 33 years in Chinese prisons and labor camps, where he was extensively tortured, and served the longest term of any Tibetan political prisoner. After his release in 1992 he fled to Dharamsala in North India, in exile. He was still a practicing monk and became a political activist, traveling the world publicizing the cause of Tibet up until his death in 2018. His autobiography ''Fire Under the Snow'' is also known as ''The Autobiography of a Tibetan Monk.'' He was the subject of the 2008 documentary film ''
Fire Under the Snow''.
Life
Palden Gyatso was born in 1933 in the Tibetan village of Panam, located on the
Nyangchu River between
Gyantse
Gyantse, officially Gyangzê Town (also spelled Gyangtse; ; ), is a town located in Gyantse County, Shigatse Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region, China. It was historically considered the third largest and most prominent town in the Tibet region ( ...
and
Shigatse
Shigatse, officially known as Xigazê (; Nepali: ''सिगात्से''), is a prefecture-level city of the Tibet Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. Its area of jurisdiction, with an area of , corresponds to the histor ...
. A few days after his birth a search party of high lamas arrived from
Drag Riwoche Monastery and declared him one of the candidates for the reincarnation of a high lama who had died the year before. In 1943, he entere
Gadong Monasteryas a novice monk. During the Chinese invasion, he became a fully ordained monk of the
Gelug
file:DalaiLama0054 tiny.jpg, 240px, 14th Dalai Lama, The 14th Dalai Lama (center), the most influential figure of the contemporary Gelug tradition, at the 2003 Kalachakra ceremony, Bodh Gaya, Bodhgaya (India).
The Gelug (, also Geluk; "virtuous ...
school. At the invitation of the
14th Dalai Lama
The 14th Dalai Lama (spiritual name Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, known as Tenzin Gyatso (Tibetan: བསྟན་འཛིན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་, Wylie: ''bsTan-'dzin rgya-mtsho''); né Lhamo Thondup), known as ...
, he moved to
Drepung Monastery
Drepung Monastery (, "Rice Heap Monastery"), located at the foot of Mount Gephel, is one of the "great three" Gelug university gompas (monasteries) of Tibet. The other two are Ganden Monastery and Sera Monastery.
Drepung is the largest of all ...
near
Lhasa
Lhasa (; Lhasa dialect: ; bo, text=ལྷ་ས, translation=Place of Gods) is the urban center of the prefecture-level city, prefecture-level Lhasa (prefecture-level city), Lhasa City and the administrative capital of Tibet Autonomous Regio ...
to complete his studies.
[Palden Gyatso bio](_blank)
at Free Tibet Campaign
Palden Gyatso was arrested in June 1959 by Chinese officials for demonstrating during the 10 March
1959 Tibetan uprising
The 1959 Tibetan uprising (also known by other names) began on 10 March 1959, when a revolt erupted in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, which had been under the effective control of the People's Republic of China since the Seventeen Point Agreemen ...
. He spent the following 33 years in different Chinese prisons and
laogai
''Laogai'' (), short for ''laodong gaizao'' (), which means reform through labor, is a criminal justice system involving the use of penal labor and prison farms in the People's Republic of China (PRC) and North Korea (DPRK). ''Láogǎi'' i ...
or
"reform through labor" camps, the longest term of any Tibetan political prisoner.
[Rosenthal, A. M. ]
On My Mind; You Are Palden Gyatso
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', April 11, 1995 ''"He was forced to participate in barbarous re-education classes and He was tortured by various methods, which included being beaten with a club ridden with nails, shocked by an electric probe, which scarred his tongue and caused his teeth to fall out, whipped while being forced to pull an iron plow, and starved."''
leading to irreversible physical damage. During this time, he continued to abide by the
Dharma
Dharma (; sa, धर्म, dharma, ; pi, dhamma, italic=yes) is a key concept with multiple meanings in Indian religions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and others. Although there is no direct single-word translation for '' ...
,
Buddha
Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a śramaṇa, wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism.
According to Buddhist tradition, he was ...
's teachings. Released in 1992, he escaped to
Dharamsala
Dharamshala (; also spelled Dharamsala) is the winter capital of Himachal Pradesh, India. It serves as administrative headquarters of the Kangra district after being relocated from Kangra, a city located away from Dharamshala, in 1855.
Th ...
in India, home of the
Tibetan government in exile
The Central Tibetan Administration (, , ), often referred to as the Tibetan Government-in-Exile, is a non-profit political organization based in Dharamshala, India. Its organization is modeled after an elective parliamentary government, compo ...
.
In Dharamsala, he wrote his autobiography, ''Fire Under The Snow'' in Tibetan, since translated into many other languages, which inspired the 2008 film, also named ''Fire Under The Snow''. ''The Autobiography of a Tibetan Monk'' was published in 1998. The
Dalai Lama
Dalai Lama (, ; ) is a title given by the Tibetan people to the foremost spiritual leader of the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" school of Tibetan Buddhism, the newest and most dominant of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The 14th and current Dal ...
noted in the foreword that ''"His sense of the justice of our cause and his indignation at what has been done to so many Tibetans are so urgent that he has not rested. Having for years resisted Communist Chinese efforts to conceal and distort it, he has seized the opportunity to tell the world the truth about Tibet.”''
During his visits to America and Europe, he became politically active as an opponent of the Chinese occupation in Tibet and as a
witness
In law, a witness is someone who has knowledge about a matter, whether they have sensed it or are testifying on another witnesses' behalf. In law a witness is someone who, either voluntarily or under compulsion, provides testimonial evidence, e ...
of many years under Chinese confinement.
In 1995, he was the first Tibetan political prisoner to address the
United Nations Human Rights Council
The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), CDH is a United Nations body whose mission is to promote and protect human rights around the world. The Council has 47 members elected for staggered three-year terms on a regional group basis. ...
and also addressed the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Human Rights. In 1998, he won the
John Humphrey Freedom Award The John Humphrey Freedom Award was presented annually by the Canadians, Canadian human rights group Rights & Democracy, to an organization or individual from any country or region of the world for exceptional achievement in the promotion of human r ...
from the Canadian human rights group
Rights & Democracy. In honor of the 2006
International Day in Support of Victims of Torture
The United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture is an international observance held annually on 26 June to speak out against the crime of torture and to honour and support victims and survivors throughout the world.
H ...
, the U.S. Senate honored him with a tribute.
Annie Lenox interviewed him in 2007. The film was widely distributed by
Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
. In 2009, he spoke at the inaugural
Oslo Freedom Forum
Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) is a series of global conferences run by the New York-based non-profit Human Rights Foundation under the slogan "Challenging Power". OFF was founded in 2009 as a one-time event and has taken place annually ever since. On ...
.
![Varsovio, Aleja Prymasa Tysiąclecia, pentraĵo 3](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Varsovio%2C_Aleja_Prymasa_Tysi%C4%85clecia%2C_pentra%C4%B5o_3.jpeg/1200px-Varsovio%2C_Aleja_Prymasa_Tysi%C4%85clecia%2C_pentra%C4%B5o_3.jpeg)
Palden Gyatso lived in
Dharamsala
Dharamshala (; also spelled Dharamsala) is the winter capital of Himachal Pradesh, India. It serves as administrative headquarters of the Kangra district after being relocated from Kangra, a city located away from Dharamshala, in 1855.
Th ...
, pursuing his Buddhist studies.
He died on 30 November 2018 at
Delek Hospital,
Dharamshala
Dharamshala (; also spelled Dharamsala) is the winter capital of Himachal Pradesh, India. It serves as administrative headquarters of the Kangra district after being relocated from Kangra, a city located away from Dharamshala, in 1855.
The ...
, India.
See also
*
Political prisoner
A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention.
There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although n ...
*
Prisoner of conscience
*
Laogai or Chinese Labor Camps
*
Labor camp
A labor camp (or labour camp, see spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (especi ...
*
Human Rights in China
Human rights in mainland China are periodically reviewed by the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC), on which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and various foreign governments and h ...
Literature
*
''Fire Under The Snow'''' Palden Gyatso, The Harvill Press, 1997, London ()
*
''The Autobiography of a Tibetan Monk'''' Grove Press, 1997 ()
Films
''Tibetan Monk Palden Gyatso in Conversation with Annie Lennox'' 1998
''Fire Under the Snow'' documentary, 2008
References
External links
*Waller, Douglas
''
CNN
CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...
, March 31, 1998
*Yangzom, Tsering
''Walk for Tibetan freedom passes through Boston area'' The Boston Globe
''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
'', July 31, 2005
First interview after 33 years in Chinese concentration campsTattoos_of_Tibetan_ex-political_prisoners:_Palden_Gyatso.html" ;"title="Tattoos">Tattoos
of Tibetan ex-political prisoners: Palden Gyatso">Tattoos">Tattoos
of Tibetan ex-political prisoners: Palden Gyatso
''Palden Gyatso, Monk Who Suffered for a Free Tibet, Dies at 85'', The New York Times*
Former Tibetan Political prisoner Palden Gyatso's funeral བོད་ཀྱི་དུས་བབ་། Tibet Times, བོད་ཀྱི་ཆབ་སྲིད་བཙོན་ཟུར་གྲགས་ཅན་རྒན་དཔལ་ལྡན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་ལགས་ཀྱི་སྐུ་ཕུང་ཞུགས་འབུལ་གནང་།
* Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gyatso, Palden
1933 births
2018 deaths
Buddhist monks from Tibet
Tibet freedom activists
Tibetan torture victims
Tibetan political people
Chinese political prisoners