UN torture rapporteur visits China's prisons, praising openess
(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2005-11-23 09:59

Manfred Novak, the special rapporteur on torture of the UN Human Rights Commission, arrived in China on Monday for a visit which will last until Dec. 2, spokesman Liu Jianchao with Foreign Ministry said at yesterday's regular briefing.

A prison open day in Nanjing. The UN's chief torture investigator has praised China's leaders for acknowledging the abuse cases in the nation's jails, as he begins a historic 12-day fact-finding mission. [AFP]

Liu told the regular press conference that the rapporteur on torture is a special procedure under the UN Commission on Human Rights, and China attaches importance to Novak's visit to China. 

Manfred Novak, the UN Human Rights Commission's special rapporteur on torture, said Beijing had offered him freer access to detainees than the United States was prepared to give him on a recently scrapped trip to Guantanamo Bay.

Aside from prisons in Beijing, Nowak will visit Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region before going onto Urumqi and Yining in the Uyghur Muslim-populated Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

Liu expressed the hope that Novak's visit can further increase mutual understanding and strengthen bilateral cooperation.

It is believed that through joint efforts, his visit can achieve the desired results on the basis of mutual respect, Liu noted.

Nowak arrived in Beijing Monday for an unprecedented trip after receiving government assurances it would cooperate with him and allow him unannounced visits to prisons and private talks with prisoners.

"I'm very grateful to the Chinese government that they did invite me and also that they accepted my terms of reference," he said on the BBC.

"I see this as an opening up of governmental policy in relation to UN special procedures and I had very good first meetings (on Monday) with the officials from the ministries of foreign affairs and justice."

The visit by Nowak, who is the first special rapporteur on torture to visit China, comes after years of negotiations between the UN and China on allowing unfettered access to prisons, private talks with detainees and no retaliation on prisoners.

Nowak said that the terms of reference for his visit to China were better than what the United States had offered on a proposed visit to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, where prisoners from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are being held.

"It was made clear by the Pentagon that they would not be willing to accept my terms of reference, so there was no other option than to finally cancel the mission," Nowak said.

Nowak last week cancelled his scheduled December 6 visit to Guantanamo Bay after failing to win assurances from the United States that he would be able to meet detainees privately.