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China accused of torture in fight against graft

Rights group calls secretive detention system aimed at making suspects confess to corruption ‘abusive’

06.12.2016 - Update : 08.12.2016
China accused of torture in fight against graft

BEIJING

An international human rights group has accused the Chinese Communist Party of employing torture under a secretive detention system aimed at making suspects confess to corruption.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a report Tuesday calling on China’s government to immediately the “shuanggui” system, which it says has no basis under Chinese law “but is a key component of President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign”.

“President Xi has built his anti-corruption campaign on an abusive and illegal detention system,” said the group’s China director, Sophie Richardson. “Torturing suspects to confess won’t bring an end to corruption, but will end any confidence in China’s judicial system.”

Xi has stressed the need to cleanse the Party of corruption, and launched his anti-graft campaign in 2013, since when tens of thousands of suspects have been investigated, including dozens of high-profile individuals at the top of the Party.

Last year, officials from the Party’s top anti-graft watchdog, the Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Central Committee (CCDI), said 38.7 billion yuan (more than $6.2 billion) in pecuniary loss had been recovered since Xi assumed office in late 2012.

In July, the CCDI revealed that more than 380 fugitives from more than 40 countries and regions had even been repatriated in the first half of this year -- with more than $185 million in assets recovered.

According to the HRW report, abuses against shuanggui detainees include “prolonged sleep deprivation, being forced into stress positions for extended periods of time, deprivation of water and food, and severe beatings” as well as being “subject to solitary and incommunicado detention in unofficial detention facilities”.

“After ‘confessing’ to corruption, they are typically brought into the criminal justice system, convicted, and sentenced to often lengthy prison terms,” it added.

Although the CCDI and its lower-level offices mainly target government officials, HRW said bankers, university officials and entertainment industry figures have also been detained.

The group underlined that despite time limits for shuanggui, the CCDI is authorized to request repeated extensions “permitting detainees to be held indefinitely”.

One of the four former shuanggui detainees interviewed by HRW was quoted as saying: “If you sit you have to sit for 12 hours straight, if you stand then you have to stand for 12 hours as well. My legs became swollen, and my buttocks were raw and started oozing pus.”

It cited media reports that at least 11 deaths were reported in shuanggui custody, which authorities blamed on suicides -- claims disputed by family members and former detainees who said constant surveillance made such a move difficult.

“In shuanggui corruption cases, the courts function as rubber stamps, lending credibility to an utterly illegal Communist Party process,” Richardson said. “Shuanggui not only further undermines China’s judiciary -- it makes a mockery of it.”

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