WORKING GROUP ON ARBITRARY DETENTION TO VISIT CHINA FROM 19 TO 30 SEPTEMBER 2004

16 September 2004


The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention will visit the People’s Republic of China from 19 to 30 September 2004 at the invitation of the Government. The Group will travel to Beijing and the cities of Chengdu, in Sichuan Province, and Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, to visit a broad range of detention centres, including prisons, re-education through labour camps; psychiatric hospitals and police stations.

The Working Group will meet with officials of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Justice, and Public Security; with Magistrates of the Supreme People’s Court; and with representatives of the Supreme People’s Prosecution Service. Meetings are scheduled with representatives of the All China Lawyers Association and other national and local non-governmental organizations. The delegation will speak to persons deprived of their liberty; former detainees and family members of persons in detention.

The delegation will be headed by Leïla Zerrougui, the Working Group’s Chairperson-Rapporteur, and will include Tamás Bán, the Working Group’s Vice-Chairperson, as well as members of the Working Group’s Secretariat. An account of the visit, the third to China following those carried out in 1996 and 1997, will be published as part of the Working Group’s report to the sixty-first session of the Commission on Human Rights, to be held next March and April.

The Commission on Human Rights established the Working Group in 1991 to investigate allegations of arbitrary deprivation of liberty. Its mandate was extended in 1997 to cover the issue of administrative custody of asylum-seekers and immigrants. It has carried out fact-finding missions to Argentina, Bahrain, Belarus, Bhutan, Indonesia, Iran , Latvia, Mexico, Nepal, Peru and Viet Nam. Concerning the issue of immigrants and asylum seekers, the Group has visited Australia, Romania and the United Kingdom.

The Working Group is composed of five independent experts appointed according to criteria governing equitable geographical distribution. In addition to Ms. Zerrougui (Algerian) and Mr. Bán (Hungarian), it is composed of the following members: Soledad Villagra de Biedermann (Paraguayan); Manuela Carmena Castrillo (Spanish) and Seyyed Mohammad Hashemi (Iranian).

For further information on the Working Group’s mandate, please consult Fact Sheet N° 26: The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, published by the Office of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (http:www.unhchr.ch/htm1/menu6/2/fs26.htm).

* *** *