Published by: World Tibet Network News ISSUE ID: 97/10/22

GENEVA Oct 21, (AP) - A visit to China by U.N. human rights investigators hoping to see prisons and other institutions rarely seen by the outside world was "successful," officials said Tuesday.

But they declined to give details of the findings of the trip by Indian and French lawyers Kapil Sibal and Louis Joinet, the chairman and vice-chairman of the United Nations' working group on arbitrary detention.

A report on the results of the investigation will be published in early 1998, said officials.

Sibal and Joinet will report on conditions for prisoners in tribunals, police stations and detention centers, as well as reform and re-education camps.

The team was able to choose and privately interview 30 prisoners in Beijing and other provinces across China, said U.N. human rights spokesman John Mills.

The only exception was a prison in Lhasa, Tibet, where Chinese officials only allowed the team to speak to four or five prisoners from a list of detainees they had asked to see, said Mills.

China formally annexed Tibet in 1951, claiming it historically was a Chinese province and causing thousands of refugees to flee to neighboring India.

"The mission was successful in terms of permitting the working group to better understand the various issues related to administration of justice and conditions in prisons," said Mills.

Sibal and Joinet will report their findings to other members of the working group in November and a report will be published in January or February next year.

The report will be discussed by the next session of the Commission on Human Rights in March, said Mills.

It is only the third visit by a U.N. human rights group to China, which has been extremely sensitive to U.N. criticism of its rights practices.

The communist country faces pressure from the United States and other western nations to improve conditions in exchange for a better standing in world trade.

(pw-agh)