Tsetan, a 26-year-old Tibetan from Nham village in Chushul District near Lhasa, received seven years of schooling in Tibetan language before working as a labourer on construction sites around Lhasa. Following the pro-independence demonstrations of 1 October 1987, he was arrested twice by the Chinese authorities. In December 1989, he was detained in Gutsa Prison, from where he later escaped to Nepal. He eventually reached Dharamshala, India, in April 1990 after fleeing political persecution in Tibet.