PHOTO ESSAY: Tibetans depart Nepal, a former safe haven transformed under Chinese pressure

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DHARAMSHALA, India (AP) — Sonam Tashi refuses to let his son inherit the same fear.

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Once active in the Free Tibet movement in Kathmandu, he found himself silenced. Unable to secure identity papers for his son, he left for the Tibetan capital in exile in India this year where his son will begin an education he can’t have at home.

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There he joined a rare protest in a city so reminiscent of what Kathmandu once was — where monks walk freely and the Dalai Lama’s portrait is not a risk.

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An investigation by The Associated Press found that much of the Chinese technology used to surveil Tibetans in Nepal originally came from American companies. Despite warnings that Chinese firms were copying or outright stealing their designs, these firms built, customized, and expanded China’s surveillance apparatus over the past quarter-century.

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Born in Nepal to Tibetan refugees, Tashi spent years on the frontlines of protest, a regular presence outside the Chinese embassy in Kathmandu. In the early days, arrests were brief — just a day or two — but by 2015, police were holding protesters for weeks. The crowds thinned. Eventually, Tashi was one of the last still showing up.

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Surveillance trailed them beyond the protests.

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Police began showing up hours before any gathering could start, demanding answers to questions they shouldn’t have known to ask: What are you doing tomorrow? Where are you going?

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Cameras multiplied — around Tibetan settlements, in temples, even near private homes. In Boudha, the comfort of lingering beneath the stupa’s all-seeing eyes curdled.

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Now 49, Tashi is focused on his 10-year-old son. Once an organizer, he’s now just a father trying to get his son out — before the net pulls tighter. On a winding bus ride toward the Indian border, Sonam stared out the window as terraced hills gave way to forest, thinking about what comes next.

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“There are cameras everywhere,” he said. “There is no future.”

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This surveillance has helped silence Nepal’s once-vibrant “Free Tibet” movement. Thousands of Tibetans once fled to Nepal every year, but last year, the number was down to the single digits, according to Tibetan officials in Nepal.

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Across the world, in Washington, D.C., Namkyi’s eyes hold the loneliness that haunts Tibetans in exile.

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Arrested at 15 and sentenced to three years in prison for protesting Chinese rule, Namkyi traveled to the U.S. to recount her story of what it means a lose a home.

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Dressed in black, with two small pins — Tibetan and American _ on her coat, she recounts how under withering surveillance, silence has become survival for Nepal’s dwindling Tibetan community.

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“They know they are being watched,” she said.

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Her eyes shine, not with certainty, but with the fragile hope that being heard might one day matter.

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This is a documentary photo story curated by AP photo editors.

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