Ngawang Sangdrol, one of Tibet’s most renowned political prisoners, was released from the notorious Drapchi prison in October after more than ten years behind bars. But what does she face now? Where do former political prisoners in Tibet find freedom and how do they live with it?

ATC spoke to two young Tibetans who were once in prison with Ngawang Sangdrol and who eventually found freedom in Australia.

If you met Ani-Chhuyen and Ani-Lobsang wandering in the sun on one of Sydney’s Northern Beaches, you would never guess the darkness they once endured.

Lobsang and Chhuyen chat and laugh with the ease of childhood best friends; finishing each other’s sentences and laughing at personal jokes. They were in fact childhood friends. They grew up in the same village in Tibet - not far from the capital Lhasa, and they went to the same nunnery and experienced together the repressive power of the Chinese regime. As young adults they participated in a demonstration, and they were both sent to Drapchi prison; alongside Ngawang Sangdrol and Phuntsog Nyidron.

Lobsang was 17 years old at the time of her arrest and was sentenced to four years, while Chhuyen, 22 at the time was sentenced to five years. Like all other Tibetan political prisoners, Chhuyen and Lobsang report years of hardship with only the most basic provisions, forced labour and frequent torture, including solitary confinement.

Yet they insist the hardship did nothing to beat the nuns’ spirits, and in fact drew them together. They worked together to protest inside prison, sharing the punishment between them and protesting enough to show the Chinese that they would not submit. And they looked after each other.

Chhuyen and Lobsang were the lucky ones. When they completed their sentences, relatively short compared to Ngawang Sangdrol’s 23-year sentence, they were freed. But to be free is one thing; to be free in Tibet is something else.

“I lived in prison for five years. After we come out we don’t want to talk to people. We can’t trust anyone because everything has changed,” Chhuyen said.

While former political prisoners are granted identity papers in Tibet, they are prevented from studying, rejoining a religious community or working. They are closely watched and the adjustment to such restricted freedom is extremely difficult.

“We’re all the same. When I was released I didn’t like outside living. It was very, very hard,” Lobsang added.

That is why Chhuyen and Lobsang were compelled to flee their beloved country. And that’s why they met the news of Ngawang Sangdrol’s release with not only immense joy but great concern.

Following their release, Chhuyen and Lobsang walked across the border to exile in Nepal. They were arrested by Nepali police on the border, an experience which they said was initially frightening but then turned out to be quite funny because Nepali prison was “like a hotel” compared to Drapchi.

They then made the trip to India to join the Tibetan community in Dharamsala and live close to the Dalai Lama. There, they were entered in the lottery that the Tibetan Government-in-Exile runs each year to distribute the ‘compassionate’ visas made available to Tibetans, including a handful from Australia.

Chhuyen and Lobsang knew nothing of Australia, but the chance for freedom—and the chance to fight for Tibet with a louder voice— was too good to be true.

“If we stayed in India - we liked it and we could do lots of study - but we could not do much for Tibetans because there’s already so much being done.” They believed that their voices would be lost in Dharamsala and that they could make more impact in their campaign for a free Tibet from a third country. And so they came to Sydney’s northern beaches, a world away from the Tibetan plateau, and a world away from Drapchi.

Chhuyen and Lobsang are now studying English and working at a Coles supermarket, stacking shelves. They find it a challenge to live in Australia because of the language difficulty but are confident that this will improve.

Lobsang said she would definitely want to become a nun again but she was not sure that she would do this in Australia. Instead, she and Chhuyen have their hearts set on working within the Australian community, and the international Tibet support movement, to help free Tibet and give other political prisoners real freedom.

“Free Tibet is about the truth. It is not something that was made up, nothing new. What people understand [about Tibet] is that this is about the truth,” they said.

Following the successful international campaign for Ngawang Sangdrol, ATC is now campaigning on behalf of Phuntsog Nyidron, another nun who has been sentenced to 17 years in prison in Drapchi prison. She is reportedly in very poor health.

Click here to read Ngawang Sangdrol’s statement after her release