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

On 19 March, as the Commission began its substantive work, Mr. Pierre Schori, Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden, speaking as a Guest Speaker said: "China is a country whose government and power structures should enhance the protection of human rights. I want particularly to point out the lack of fundamental freedoms, the lack of fair and independent legal system, the excessive use of the death penalty, the practice of administrative detention and the situation of handicapped children, especially girls, in state institutions."

That evening, Zhang Yishan of China, speaking in a "right of reply" to the Swedish Minister's statement said that still, there had been a discordant voice that sounded a note of confrontation and constituted a violation of the sovereign rights of States. The statement remarked that to say that China did not have an independent legal system was entirely uncalled for and did not reflect the atmosphere so many were trying so hard to establish.

Mr. Peter van Wulfften Palthe, Head of the Dutch Delegation, was of the opinion that the interruption of a guest speaker by a delegation was of political nature. He urged that such acts should be avoided in the future. This Dutch statement was in reaction to the Chinese Delegation, making a "point of order" (interrupts a statement) when the Swedish Minister was referring to the human rights situation in China in his statement.