UN's top human rights official to visit China, Cambodia and East Timor

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights today announced plans to visit China, Cambodia and East Timor later this month.

Mary Robinson will begin her trip in Beijing, opening a workshop on 18 August for judges and lawyers to launch "an important new area of human rights cooperation between her Office and Chinese authorities," according to a statement released today in Geneva.

Also during her seventh trip to China, the High Commissioner will take stock of the implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding concluded with the country's authorities in November 2000, meet with a number of government ministers, and visit a project of the All China Women's Federation.

While in Beijing, Mrs. Robinson will hold talks with King Norodom Sianouk of Cambodia before proceeding to Phnom Penh. During her stay there, from 20 to 22 August, she will focus on judicial and legal reform, human trafficking and economic and social rights.

Mrs. Robinson will meet with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen as well as a number of other senior officials and representatives of human rights non-governmental organizations (NGOs). She will also address the National Assembly.

While in East Timor from 23 to 25 August, the High Commissioner address Parliament and attend the first public hearing of the country's Reception Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Mrs. Robinson will also travel to Suai, where she will hold discussions with the survivors of a massacre that killed over 100 people at a church there in 1999. This will be her second meeting with the group, who she contacted previously during her first visit to East Timor two years ago.