Jurists To Inquire Into Chinese Actions In Tibet

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28980, 22 August 1959, Page 11

Jurists To Inquire Into Chinese Actions In Tibet

GENEVA, August 21. Distinguished jurists from nine countries of Asia. Africa and Europe have accepted memberchip in the Legal Inquiry Committee on Tibet, the International Commission of Jurists announced today., the inquiry committee is a development and expansion of the until team of experts established by Mr Purshottam Trikamdas, Senior Advocate of the Supreme Court of India, who presented perjonally to the Commission in Geneva his findings on the question of Tibet. These findings were the basis of the preliminary report which the commission has published, “The Question of Tibet and the Rule of Law.” The members of the committee are Mr Trikamdas, Mr Arturo A Alafriz, president of the Federation of Bar Associations of the Philippines; Mr Kwamena BentsiEnchill secretary of the Ghana Bar Association; Mr Rolf Christopherson, secretary-general of the Norwegian Bar Association; Mr N.

C. Chatterjee, senior advocate and Vice-President of the Supreme Court of India; Mr T. S. Fermando, Justice of the Supreme ourt of Ceylon; Mr E. Maung, former Justice of the Supreme Court of Burma; Mr R. P. Mookerjee, Vice-Chancellor and Dean of the Faculty of Law, Calcutta University; Mr Ong Huck Lim, member of the Bar Council of the Federation of Malaya; Mr M. R. Seni Pramoj, Professor of Law in the Universities of Thammasart- and Chulalongkorn; and Lord Shawcross, Q.C., former AttorneyGeneral of England.

The committee will continue the inquiry undertaken by Mr Trikamdas and will continue T o collect documents, statements and other evidence on the question of Tibet. This evidence collected will be examined and a final report will be prepared.' Particular attention is to be paid to the question of violation of human rights and to the question whether the crime of genocide is sufflmently proven. The committee will then consider what appropriate action should be taken. In its preliminary report, the commission said that there was a pnma facie cage that the Chinese Communists have committed acts of genocide in an attempt to destroy th e Tibetan nation and trie Buddhist religion in Tibet The report based on documents and statements from Tibetan and Chinese Communist sources as well as other materials, says that the Chinese have by killing Tibetans and by the forcible removal of Tibetans committed acts contrary to the Genocide Convention of 1948. There is also evidence that these acts were intentionally directed towards the destruction of the Tibetan religion and nation.