Somehow my idea of a Buddhist prison was a place where prisoners would be taught Vipassana and would come out as a reformed people. But in fact a Tibetan prison is not even close and also they had instruments of torture.
Tibet's largest ancient prison, Langzisha in Lhasa, vandalised during the "Cultural Revolution" era is under repair and is expected to be opened to the public in May, 2005, a report said Monday. The project, which cost $ 60,241, aims to restore the original look of the ancient prison and help people learn about Tibet's history, local officials said.Losang Jigme, who is in charge of the project, said the reconstruction team will repair all walls, the roof of the three-story building, all nine cells of the prison, a court room and the prison control room. Situated in Bargor Street of Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, Langzisha is a typical example of Tibetan architecture covering an area of 720 square metres. Built by the fifth Dalai Lama in the middle of the 17th century, it was originally meant to be the government headquarters of Lhasa, but was later turned into a prison. [Ancient Tibet prison to open]
Now the same news was reported by both Xinhuanet and PTI, the PTI news being a word by word copy of the Xinhuanet article. But in the PTI article, the following line disappeared
Even in the first half of the 20th century, Tibet remained a society of theocractic feudal serfdom, one even darker and more backward than medieval Europe.