This photo essay follows Tibetans leaving Nepal as Chinese-backed surveillance and pressure convert a former refuge into a monitored state. Sonam Tashi moved his son to the Tibetan exile capital in India because he could not secure identity papers in Nepal. An AP investigation found that much of the technology used to monitor Tibetans in Nepal originated with U.S. companies and was later adapted by Chinese firms. Intensifying surveillance, arrests and intimidation have all but silenced the Free Tibet movement and sharply reduced arrivals to Nepal.
Photo Essay: Tibetans Leave Nepal as Chinese Pressure Turns Former Haven Into a Surveillance State
Sonam Tashi takes a walk in a temple at the Tibetan Children's Village school in Mcleodganj near Dharamshala, India, March 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)
DHARAMSHALA, India — Sonam Tashi refuses to let his 10-year-old son inherit the fear that defined his own life.
Once a visible organizer in Kathmandu’s Free Tibet movement, Tashi says his voice was gradually silenced. Unable to obtain identity documents for his child in Nepal, he traveled this year to the Tibetan exile capital in India so his son could access an education that was effectively out of reach at home.
In India he joined one of the rare demonstrations that still occur — in a city that recalls what Kathmandu once felt like, where monks move freely and displaying the Dalai Lama’s portrait is not hazardous.
Surveillance, Pressure and a Shrinking Movement
An investigation by The Associated Press found that much of the technology used to monitor Tibetans in Nepal originally came from U.S. companies. Despite warnings that Chinese firms were copying or otherwise appropriating designs, those firms adapted and expanded surveillance systems that were later used to track Tibetan activists abroad over the past quarter-century.
Born in Nepal to Tibetan refugee parents, Tashi spent years at the frontlines — often outside the Chinese embassy in Kathmandu. In the movement’s early days arrests were typically brief, a day or two. By 2015, protesters were being held for weeks, and crowds thinned until only a few people remained.
“There are cameras everywhere,” Tashi said as he rode a winding bus toward the Indian border. “There is no future.”
Surveillance followed activists off the streets. Police began appearing hours before planned gatherings, asking questions such as "Who will you meet tomorrow?" or "Where are you headed?" — queries that suggested knowledge obtained through monitoring rather than routine policing. Cameras have proliferated around Tibetan settlements, near temples and outside private homes. In Boudha, the simple comfort of sitting beneath the stupa’s watchful gaze evaporated.
That expanding system of observation has helped quiet Nepal’s once-vibrant Free Tibet movement. Tens of thousands of Tibetans used to travel to Nepal each year; Tibetan officials in Nepal say last year that number fell to the single digits.
Voices in Exile
Across the world in Washington, D.C., Namkyi — arrested at 15 and sentenced to three years in prison for protesting Chinese rule — now shares her story about what it means to lose a home. Dressed in black with small Tibetan and American pins on her coat, she says relentless monitoring has made silence a form of survival for Nepal’s dwindling Tibetan community.
“They know they are being watched,” she said. Her expression reflects not certainty but a fragile hope that being heard outside the surveillance net might still matter.
Note: This is a documentary photo story curated by AP photo editors.
