Tibet : Beyond Fear

They are a Tibetan Buddhist nun named Ngawang Sangdrol and a monk named Bagdro, and their straightforward accounts of what happened to them when they began to speak out against the Chinese government are told with a calm understatement that makes them riveting.

Both are far too young to have experienced the Chinese invasion of 1950; they tell of how they became aware of Tibets modern history only gradually because the older generation was too afraid of reprisal to talk about it. Eventually, though, they learned the facts and began protesting. Ngawang Sangdrol was imprisoned as a teenager in 1992; Bagdro, somewhat older, was jailed in 1988.

Both were eventually released and told their stories in the West; their broken English in this film is, somehow, part of what makes them so compelling. Ngawang Sangdrol, for instance, who would not stop protesting even while in prison and ultimately ended up with a 23-year sentence, describes this way her sisters reaction when she was unexpectedly released in 2002:

They told my sister pick up me. Then they says my sister cry. My sister thought it was just body. Im died, she thought.

Directed, written and produced by Michael Perlman; Mary Perillo and Brian Gates, editors; Joshua Meltzer, composer; Richard Gere, narrator. Produced by World2be Productions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/13/arts/television/13fear.html

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[sunshiningcc]

They lie to the world.

[TheRealChina]

go ahead post the same comment in all my videos... yup they are all Lies...

the videos smuggle out of Tibet are lies,

the torture weapons are also lies....

tibetans constantly escaping from tibet are also lies...

[arafel1964]

The reality is that this alleged autonomy is crippled by severe limits and by Beijing's ultimate control.

Autonomy in the so-called "Tibet Autonomous Region" is extremely limited, is granted or retracted at Beijing's will, and is based on power-relationships rather than clearly defined rights. Most fundamentally, it's hard to speak of "autonomy" when the government is controlled by totalitarians who prohibit independent institutions or organizations