SPECIAL ISSUE: Tibet at the UNCHR's 52nd Session in Geneva (18 March - 26 April, 1996)

Geneva, 8 April - As the Commission concluded three weeks' work, the issue of Tibet, particularly self-determination, religious freedom, disappearance of Panchen Rinpoche, detention of Tibetans, were prominently raised at the United Nations 52nd session of the Commission on Human Rights. Similarly, a two-day conference (25 and 26 March) on self-determination on East Timor, Tibet and Western Sahara held at the UN concluded successfully with excellent attendance. As for the resolution on China, on 29 March, the European Union finally announced that together with the United States a resolution will be tabled at this year's Commission on the human rights situation in China. This will be the fifth attempt in as many years. The Tibetan Government in Exile has been lobbying at the Commission since 1989.

Through a briefing paper released to the delegates at the Commission on 25 March, the Tibetan Government in Exile urged the 52nd session to:

1. Take concrete, firm and effective measures to stop the continued violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms in Tibet;

2. Urge the Chinese authorities to immediately release Gedhun Choekyi Nyima from incommunicado detention and enforced disappearance;

3. Encourage its Special Rapporteurs and Working Groups to undertake fact - finding missions to investigate the situation in Tibet;

4. Appoint a Special Rapporteur on Tibet;

5. Call upon the Chinese authorities to immediately withdraw its policy of population transfer of Chinese settlers into Tibet; and,

6. Urge China to release all political prisoners in Tibet.

The briefing paper pointed out that "it may well be that certain issues are brought to the attention of the Commission on Human Rights for political reasons. When it comes to the ongoing gross violations of human rights which go on in China and Tibet, it is not the Chinese or Tibetan people or the governments that have been willing to support them that have politicised the debate. They are concerned with the issue of human rights and fundamental freedoms. It is the Chinese government which, by claiming that any discussion of China's human rights policy, especially in Tibet, is a breach of China's sovereignty, it is turning what should be a human rights debate into a political one about the legitimacy of China's rule in Tibet and elsewhere."