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U.N. investigators to visit China to check on detainees

AP Worldstream; 9/16/2004

AP Worldstream

09-16-2004

Dateline: GENEVA

A group of human rights experts is to visit China _ including the disputed region of Tibet _ to investigate whether detainees in prisons, labor camps, psychiatric hospitals and police stations are being held illegally, the United Nations said Thursday.

The five-person Working Group on Arbitrary Detention will visit the country from Sept. 19 to 30 at the invitation of the Chinese government, the U.N. human rights office said.

The group will go to the capital, Beijing , the city of Chengdu in Sichuan Province , and the Tibetan capital, Lhasa . The delegation will be headed by Algerian lawyer Leila Zerrougui.

The working group will meet with officials of the ministries of foreign affairs, justice and public security, as well as magistrates and prosecutors, the United Nations said in a statement.

Meetings are also scheduled with lawyers and non-governmental organizations. The delegations will speak to detainees, former detainees and family members.

The delegation will draw up a report on its visit for next spring's annual meeting of the 53-nation U.N. Human Rights Commission.

Human rights campaigners have long accused China of massive rights violations, including illegal detention and trials, executions and torture.

They are particularly concerned about the situation in Tibet , which China occupied in 1951, though Beijing claims the region has been part of Chinese territory for centuries.

The Dalai Lama, the region's spiritual leader, fled to India after an abortive uprising against Chinese rule in 1959.

Last year the working group declared that a dissident sentenced to life imprisonment in China is being held in contravention of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a United Nations panel said Monday.

It said Wang Bingzhang had been given no information about the charges against him and had no legal representation. His trial was held behind closed doors and he was not able to prepare a defense or cross-examine witnesses.

The working group has visited China twice before, in 1996 and 1997.

A number of U.N. human rights officials have visited China in the past, but others have so far been thwarted.

In June, Chinese officials postponed a visit by the U.N. expert on torture, Theo van Boven, thwarting a decade-long effort by the World Body to pursue claims of abuse in the country's prisons.

China said the postponement was due to technical problems and difficulties with arranging van Boven's schedule.