During our first encounter with a Tibetan who realized we were westerners and one of us was fluent in Tibetan, we found that he could not contain himself. Many are in jail, most for political reasons. We saw Drapchi prison, which is off the beaten path in a slum area. Guards in pairs were ever present. We saw the Sangyip prison complex and then Gusta prison.
Prisons seem to be a growth industry in Tibet.
We told the Tibetan not to take chances. He said it is so important that we see these places that he didn't care and we continued on what had become a nightmare tour. We passed the main security bureau, the intelligence headquarters and then the prison bureau, each heavily guarded. All the while we heard about monks and nuns and common men and women who were dragged away to prison and torture. Political prisoners are isolated from the general prison population and kept in unlighted and unheated areas with no sanitary or medical facilities and almost no food or water.