UN Panel Presses China on Torture, Arbitrary Detentions in TibetWednesday, 12 November 2008, 12:01 p.m.
Human Rights Groups pressed China on whereabouts of the 11th Panchen Lama Gedhun Choekyi Nyima during a review meeting on torture allegations at the UN on 6 November 2008.
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Dharamshala:
A United Nations (UN) watchdog investigating torture allegations on
Monday pressed China to provide details of Tibetans who were arrested,
disappeared, brutally tortured and killed during the crackdown on
Tibetans across Tibet since March this year.The UN Committee
Against Torture body of independent experts voiced concern that China
has not presented sufficient information to show its compliance with
its international obligation to end torture.The Committee
against Torture is a body of 10 independent experts tasked with
monitoring implementation by State parties of the Convention against
Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.“The
Chinese delegates largely evaded the substantive issues,” said Sharon
Hom, executive director of Human Rights in China (HRIC). “Overall, we
are disappointed by the failure of the delegation to address specific
issues and cases of concern raised by the Committee. Instead, they
focused on reciting formal provisions of law and presenting statistics
in isolation.Committee members pressed the Chinese delegation
for clarification of many areas of law and information about cases they
saw as relevant to the practice of torture, which include the state
secrets designation of cases, which in effect deprives a detainee of
the right to counsel, acts causing mental suffering, or acts of torture
committed by non-judicial officials hired by the government and the
ongoing crackdown on lawyers.During the review meeting in Geneva on 6 November, human rights group including the International Campaign for Tibet
and Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy expressed their deep
concern over China’s failure to respond to address human rights issues
in Tibet.The rights groups reminded the UN panel of His
Holiness the Dalai Lama’s grave concern that “Tibetans are being handed
down a death sentence and Tibet, an ancient nation with an ancient
cultural heritage is dying.”The right groups has sought an
additional report from China to account for the situation in Tibet,
including the official figures on arrests, killed, injured, disappeared
and sentenced.They encouraged China to receive the High
Commissioner for Human Rights to visit Tibetan areas in China as a
follow-up to the request made by the former-High Commissioner on 27
March 2008.Welcoming the recent visit of the Norwegian parliamentary delegation to “Tibet Autonomous Region”, they urged the
Chinese authorities to receive ‘Special Procedure Mandate-holders’ to
conduct fact-finding mission to Tibetan areas.They also urged
China to abolish the ‘Reeducation Through Labour (RTL)’ system,
implement a moratorium on executions, launch of a human rights
education programme and establish a national human rights institution
based on the Principles. The right groups urged China to sign
and ratify the ‘International Convention for the Protection of All
Persons from Enforced Disappearances’. They sought information from
Chinese government on the whereabouts of the 11th Panchen Lama Gedhun
Choekyi Nyima and to form an independent body to visit the Panchen Lama
and his family members. In their response, Shen Yang, an
official with China’s Ethnic Affairs Commission, told the committee
that “Choekyi Nyima and his family are leading a normal life and they
don’t want to be disturbed.”The UN’s Committee Against Torture will make its final recommendations known in a report on November 21.