There Dhondup Wangchen witnessed a pro-independence demonstration repressed by security authorities, an experience that a relative would later describe as critical to his "political awareness".

[2] In 1993, he and a cousin crossed the Himalayas into India to receive the blessing of Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

[1] In preparation for likely reprisals by the Chinese government, Dhondup Wangchen moved his wife, Llamo Tso, and their four children to Dharamsala, India.

[2][5] Between August 2007 to March 2008, Dhondup Wangchen and Jigme Gyatso gathered interviews from 108 Tibetan individuals discussing the political situation, all of whom agreed to have their faces shown on camera.

[2][4] They had completed filming and just smuggled the tapes out of Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, when riots erupted and began to spread through Tibetan-majority areas of China.

[6] As part of the government response that followed, both Jigme Gyatso and Dhondup Wangchen were detained on 28 March in Tong De, Qinghai Province.

[8] The footage was taken to Switzerland, where colleagues at Dhondup Wangchen's production company, Filming for Tibet, assembled it into Leaving Fear Behind.

[13] In April 2010, he was transferred to Xichuan Labour Camp in Qinghai Province, where prisoners' work reportedly includes the manufacture of bricks, concrete, and aluminum-alloy windows.

Amnesty International protested the arrests of both men, noting Jigme Gyatso to be at risk of further torture[17] and naming Dhondup Wangchen a prisoner of conscience.

"[21] On 10 March 2011, former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi called for Dhondup Wangchen's release in honor of Tibetan Uprising Day.

[22][b] Also in early 2011, Boston's American Repertory Theater and System of a Down's Serj Tankian dedicated their production of Prometheus Bound to him and seven other activists, stating in program notes that "by singing the story of Prometheus, the God who defied the tyrant Zeus by giving the human race both fire and art, this production hopes to give a voice to those currently being silenced or endangered by modern-day oppressors".