Tibetan monk activist Golog Jigme Gyatso.Photo: Edwina Pickles

He was tortured by Chinese authorities for his role in a documentary about repression in Tibet. Then he escaped into exile, he tells Amanda Hooton, to continue raising the alarm.

Golog Jigme Gyatsoenters the Vajrayana Buddhist Institute in Sydney looking calm and cheerful. This is almost a default expression for Tibetans, but it's doubly impressive in Jigme's case, since he's been exiled from his country since 2014; he's an escaped prisoner of the Chinese government; and he's a victim of torture. He has supple olive skin, and dark eyes crinkling behind his glasses. He reminds me of the Dalai Lama, whom I interviewed many years ago: the same aura of seriousness, enlivened by jokes.

He settles his claret-coloured robes in a low-backed chair and folds his hands. The worst thing he suffered in prison, he says conversationally through his interpreter, actually occurred in a chair: the so-called tiger chair (a well-known interrogation tool in China), onto which his wrists and ankles were shackled, holding him immobile while he was given electric shocks. He was also made to half-squat facing the chair, arms and feet locked onto its legs, for hours on end. He still bears the scars from having most of his weight hanging from his wrists.

I feel light-headed just thinking of this: how does he manage to be so matter-of-fact about it? "Well, from an early age I lived under very physically difficult conditions," he says calmly. "And my Buddhist faith helped, perhaps; it allowed me to have clarity of mind and accept challenges. But also I think, as a Tibetan, this is not an individual problem it is the struggle of all Tibetans. As an individual, the worst scenario was death, or imprisonment, and I was prepared for both of these. So I was not too badly affected." He leans forward, clasping his hands.

"But one thing that does still make me very nervous is that tiger chair. No matter how much I say I'm strong, I do have dreams, nightmares, and hear the police officers' voices I hear them interrogating me in that iron chair."

Jigme was born in his nomadic family's tent in remote eastern Tibet, and grew up in increasing poverty as the Chinese confiscated Tibetan livestock and land. He was drawn to the monastic life by his great uncle, a monk. "Many monks were being forced to give up their way of life at that time, but my uncle refused. I was a young boy and he was in his 80s, but I thought he was very brave.

"He used to give us lots of advice about overcoming problems, and he made me feel very happy."

He entered the monastic life at 12. "I tried to be like my uncle, and not be silenced by fear or oppression." In 2008, before the Beijing Olympics, he and filmmaker Dhondup Wangchen took a single video camera and travelled across Tibet, recording more than 40 hours of footage of 108 ordinary Tibetans discussing their lives. The resulting documentary, Leaving Fear Behind, was called "an unadorned indictment of the Chinese government" by The New York Times. Jigme was arrested for his role in it, imprisoned and, he says, tortured. Released in 2009, he was rearrested in 2012. And then he escaped.

How does anyone escape from a Chinese prison? "Mah-jong," says Jigme, smiling. Realising his guards gathered at night to play the board game, he waited until the sole sentry fell asleep one evening and simply let himself out of the main gate. "And then he just ran and ran and ran," says the interpreter, wide-eyed.

He spent 20 months in hiding. "The first two or three months were very difficult," he recalls, "because it was hard to get food and my legs were not good from the torture. And from those years of imprisonment, I was not so fit. I was mostly hiding in the mountains and just going down to the village to beg. I learnt there was a 200,000 yuan reward [$40,000] for my arrest. But fortunately I had a long beard, had lost a lot of weight, and was not in my robes. I was in disguise!" He pauses. "And even though it was very difficult, I also really enjoyed it because it was very beautiful. I saw all sorts of flowers and plants I'd never seen before, and at times the weather was good. I really enjoyed being on the run in summer!"

He escaped over the border to India in 2014, and then to Switzerland, where he was accepted as a political refugee. "Now I see my role to tell the world what is really happening inside Tibet," he concludes. He has testified before the UN Human Rights Council, the US Congress and the parliaments of the UK and the EU. What does he do in his spare time, I wonder. "Well, Zurich is a busy, crowded place," he says, smiling. "But what I like about Switzerland is the mountains. I like climbing in the mountains; that's my favourite activity. It reminds me of home."

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Exiled monk Golog Jigme Gyatso: not silenced by fear or oppression - The Sydney Morning Herald