Melody in Prison: Ngawang Choephel
	UPDATE 13 December 1999

Students for a Free Tibet has sent out the following email:

We have learned of some developments about Ngawang Choephel's case, reported from the office of US Senator J.M. Jeffords. As many of you will know, Ngawang was arrested and sentenced to 18 years in prison when he traveled to Tibet to make a video about traditional Tibetan music and dance. Ngawang is a Fulbright Scholar, and attended Middlebury College in Vermont.

To summarize, it appears that the Chinese government has written to US congressmen from Vermont and admitted that he is suffering from bronchitis, pulmonary infection and hepatitis. This information was already reported by the Tibetan Centre of Human Rights and Democracy in Dharamsala early this year and was the basis for a letter by Ngawang's mother, Sonam Decky, addressed to the High Commissioner of Human Rights, Mary Robinson, in January 1999.

The optimistic interpretation of this sudden burst of information is that China may be willing to release him on medical parole as part of the political horse trading to get China into the World Trade Organisation.

Please write to the Chinese Ambassador and your government officials and state your concern about Ngawang Choephel's medical condition, and urge China to release him immediately so that he can receive appropriate treatment. Contact info for the Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. follows:

His Excellency Mr. Li Zhaoxing
Embassy of the People's Republic of China
2300 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20008
Tel: 202 328-2500
Fax: 202 588-0032
Email: webmaster@china-embassy.org