One of the longest serving Tibetan political prisoners, Ama Adhe has passed away at 92 in India. The former political prisoner passed away at her residence in McLeod Ganj, North India on Monday morning. According to people close to her, she was not suffering from any health issues and therefore she has passed away due to old age.
Adhe Tapontsang, popularly known as Ama Adhe is one of the few Tibetans who survived to tell the stories of torture by the Communist Chinese Regime in prison. Her husband died in front of her when Chinese authorities poisoned him in 1958. She joined the Tibetan resistance group of Khampas but was soon arrested alongside 300 others during a protest against Chinese rule that year. She was subjected to interrogation and torture, and condemned to re-education through forced labour in the laogai where she experienced extreme deprivation, torture, and rape during 27 years of imprisonment.
Ama Adhe was released from prison in 1985, when then Chinese president Deng Xiaoping declared to free all political prisoners as a part of many reforms, after 27 years ordeal of torture. In 1987, she escaped from Tibet and sought refuge in India. Since then she has been living in McLeod Ganj, the temporal seat of Tibetan spiritual leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
The book called Ama Adhe describes the inhuman conditions that she and countless others were forced to endure after the Chinese invasion, and the subsequent brutalities Tibetans had to endure, including the destruction of Buddhist monasteries and the implementation of policies resulting in mass starvation.
Cremation ceremonies for Ama Adhe will be held on Wednesday morning in McLeod Ganj.
Leave a Reply