CHINA: The United Nations' top torture investigator arrived in Beijing yesterday on his first visit to China, a landmark trip which will take in some of the country's most sensitive political hotspots.
UN special rapporteur on torture Manfred Nowak will meet officials, lawyers and alleged victims of brutality during his two-week visit.
His schedule in China will include visits to detention centres, where human rights groups say prisoners are given electric shocks or beaten into signing confessions.
"China has taken many years to agree to the terms of such a visit, which includes giving guarantees that there will be no reprisals taken against individuals who speak to the rapporteur," said Alison Reynolds, director of the British-based Free Tibet Campaign.
China insists it is doing its best to stop torture and says it does not officially condone torture or forced confessions and has passed laws which punish policemen who force people to sign confessions.
The UN Commission on Human Rights first decided to appoint a special rapporteur to examine questions relevant to torture in 1985. Mr Nowak was appointed to the Geneva-based post in November last year.
His visit will take in Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region. There have been many reports of persecution by the Chinese government against ethnic Tibetans.
He will also visit Urumqi and Yining in the restive Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. Ethnic Uighurs, mostly Muslims, also say that they are being brutally suppressed by China for separatist activities.
He is due to give a briefing on his findings on the last day of his trip on December 2nd.
China has the world's biggest prison population and mistreatment of prisoners is common.
Tibet human rights advocacy groups are keen to make the most of the rapporteur's visit and have written a joint letter to him urging a probe into the alleged systematic torture of political prisoners in Tibet and 42 deaths in custody. They include five Buddhist nuns who died in June 1998 following demonstrations at Drapchi Prison in Lhasa.
Another advocacy group, the Indian-based Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, says it has documented the deaths of at least 88 Tibetan political prisoners due to torture.
China signed the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, a key piece of human rights law, in 1998 but has yet to join over 150 other countries in ratifying it.