World Tibet Network News Monday, April 01, 1998
GENEVA, April 1, (Reuters) - Jailers later beat Tibetan prisoners involved in a pro-independence protest during a visit by United Nations legal experts investigating human rights in China, a U.S.-based group has alleged.
In a letter obtained by Reuters on Wednesday, the New York Human Rights Watch called on the U.N. experts to press the Chinese authorities for information on what happened to the detainees and for clearance for relatives to visit them.
A U.N. human rights spokesman in Geneva, John Mills, said the experts -- Kapil Sibal of India and Louis Joinet of France -- asked Beijing last month for comment on the allegations and were expecting a response shortly.
According to the letter, the protest took place at Tibet's Drapchi prison last October when Sibal and Joinet, who head a U.N. expert working group on arbitrary detention, were on a Chinese-organised tour to prepare a formal report.
Chinese officials said nothing would happen to the prisoners but they were "interrogated, beaten and placed in solitary confinement" after the U.N. experts left, the letter said.
It indicated that one prisoner, identified as Sonam Tsewang, played the main role with help from others.
The letter gave no details, but Human Rights Watch official Reed Brody told Reuters that, in the presence of the two and Chinese officials, Tsewang had declared: "Long live the Dalai Lama."
The Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, is still revered by supporters seeking the region's autonomy or independence from China. He argues that Tibetans are barred from expressing their national and cultural identity.
The letter also asked why no mention of the affair was included in a report by the team presented last week to the current session of the 53-nation U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva.
There was no immediate comment from Sibal or Joinet, But diplomatic sources said they had decided not to record the incident when they compiled the report to avoid sparking retribution against Tsewang.
