E/CN.4/1993/26 page 28 83. Lobsang Tenzin and Tempa Wangdrak, both prisoners in Drapchi, were severely beaten and put in solitary confinement after they tried to hand a petition to a delegation of United States diplomats who visited the prison in March 1991. 84. With respect to these cases, the Government reported that on 1 April 1991, during a visit by the former Permanent Representative of the United States to China to prisons in the Tibet Autonomous Region, one criminal, Tempa Wangdrak, asked another, Lobsang Tenzin, to slip a note he had prepared to one of the visitors. The prison, in accordance with prison regulations, assigned both of them to a brief period of confinement as punishment; the alleged severe beating and placing in solitary confinement did not occur. 85. Ngawang Zoepa, from Doe, Damshung region, reportedly serving a five- or six-year sentence; Kelsang Gyaltsen, reportedly serving a six-year sentence; Ngawang Tsondrue, reportedly serving a four- or five- year sentence; Ngawang Legshe, reportedly serving a four- or five-year sentence; Ngawang Namgyal, from Damshung, reportedly serving a three- or four-year sentence. These five monks from Ding-gar, a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Toelung Dechen near Lhasa, were reportedly detained on the afternoon of 17 March 1991 while attempting to unfurl a Tibetan nationalist banner at the start of a demonstration in the Barkhor area. A witness alleged that the monks were beaten by officers of the Public Security Bureau, and that one of the monks appeared to have had his hand broken. 86. With respect to these cases, the Government reported that Ngawang Zoepa, Ngawang Legshe and Ngawang Namgyal were sentenced by the Lhasa municipal people's intermediate court in March 1991 respectively to six, four and three years' imprisonment for engaging in unlawful activities aimed at the division of the country and the overthrow of the Government. 87. Tsering Taschi, a monk of Sera monastery from Medro Lapdong, was arrested and severely beaten for taking part in a demonstration in the Bakhor area of Lhasa on 26 May 1991. He was then taken to Gutsa prison and forced to give blood. 88. Ngawang Tsepak; Sonam Lhamo, from Tachi Lhoka; Ngawang Choezom, from Lhoka Chonggye; Phuntsog Tendrol; Pasang Wangmo; Pasang Drolma; Dechen Drolma; Lobsang Choedron; Dawa Chazom. These nine nuns from the Chubsant and Shungsep nunneries were reportedly arrested in Lhasa in September 1989 and taken to Gutsa prison. While in detention they were hung from their arms and feet, beaten and given electric shocks. 89. A number of detainees in prisons and detention centres in the Tibet Autonomous Region are in recent years reported to have died in custody, or within weeks of their release, apparently as a result of ill-treatment or lack of medical care while in detention. The following cases, in particular, were reported: (a) Tsamla, a woman trader from Lhasa, died in late August or early September 1991, about three months after her release from two and a half years in detention at Gutsa detention centre. She was held incommunicado for at