Agenda item 8

QUESTION OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS OF ALL PERSONS SUBJECTED TO ANY FORM OF

DETENTION OR IMPRISONMENT

Statement by Marino Busdachin, representative of the Transnational Radical Party, a NGO in consultative status (Category I)

Mr. Chairman:

1.Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment in detention is a continuing practice in a number of countries.

The report on torture and other cruel treatment and punishment submitted to the Commission by the Special Rapporteur, Mr. Nigel S. Rodley, reveals the existence of crimes against

humanity.

2. We would like to raise our deep concern about the situation in Kosovo and China, where the continuing practice of torture and cruel treatment have increased in the past few years.

3. Since 1995, physical torture in Kosovo has been used against all categories of the population, including women, children and the elderly. It is carried out in the street, during custody at the police station, during criminal investigations, and in the course of the arbitrary arrest of civilians.

According to the report of Council for the Defence of Human Rights and Freedoms in Prishtina, more than 10.000 Albanians were submitted to physical torture and other cruel treatment.

4. In Kosovo the Convention Against torture has been ignored by the Serbian state authority. The Yugoslavian government has repeatedly shown that it does not respect its own Costitution and laws, let alone internationl conventions. The numbers of people injured, dismissed from their jobs, sentenced to prison, besides the massive discrimination in all aspects of public life, education, culture, economy, and the state administration may be indicative of a serious risk of a new ethnical cleansing policy.

5. In China Mr. Chairman, the situation is particularly serious in Tibet. According to the information transmitted by the Special Rapporteur to the Chinese Government in July 1995, torture and ill-treatment of persons arrested for political reasons in Tibet were particulary pervasive. Torture reportedly incudes beatings, electric shocks, deprivation of food and drink, exposure to cold, handcuffing or shackling for long periods, and denial of medical

treatment.

6. In the report, China: No one is safe, Amnesty International said: "In recent years, repression has intensified in rural areas in Tibet following a grouth in unrest increasing numbers of lay men and women have been arbitrarily detained. In 1994 new regulation were passed to suppress national demonstrations and as a result many monasteries and nunneries have been raided."

7. The internationally very well known case of the forced disappearance of the new Panchen Lama, the 6-year old boy Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, is a cler example and a symbol of the situation

of Human Rights in China.

8. The Transnational Radical Party urges the member state of the

Commission on Human Rights to consider the above examples in the thematical resolutions and, in particular, to strongly back a resolution on the Human Rights in China and appoint a Special rapporteur to investigate.

9. Mr.Chairman, to conclude this statement, we are asking the Commission to consider whether the Death Penalty could be seen as a clear example of cruel and inhumane treatment. The increasing number of executions in many countries is a sign of the barbarity of our times. Some cruel methods of execution are particularly violent and painful.

The highest number of executions worldwide is reported from the People's Republic of China.

However, in the United State, the number of executions has icreased dramatically in the past few years. The additional problem of thousands of persons who are waiting to be executed, some for more than ten years, also needs to be considered.

10. The use of the Death penalty is only partially dealt with the

Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions as the use of the death penalty per se is not yet absolutely proscribed under international human rights law.

The Transnational Radical Party jointly with the International Campaign for the abolition of the death penalty "Hands off Cain"

urges the Commission to consider the capital punishment

a cruel and inhuman punishment and to ask the member countries,

and firstly to the members of the European Union, to present a draft resolution on capital executions in the next General Assembly.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman