Hong Kong (CNN) -- Squads of local government enforcers are operating in Chinese cities without proper supervision, often employing brutal methods and carrying out illegal detentions, a new report from Human Rights Watch claims.
The 76-page report, "Beat Him, Take Everything Away," documents abuses by the Urban Management Law Enforcement units, known as "chengguan," whose principle function is to assist regular police in tackling low-level crime in urban areas such as traffic violations and unauthorized street vendors. It says the behavior of "thuggish" officers has caused widespread public anger and undermined social stability.
While they have the power to impose fines on violators, the chengguan do not have the authority to detain people or use excessive force.
But victims of chengguan abuse -- many of them street vendors -- describe being dragged, punched, kicked, and thrown from their vehicles to the street for no apparent reason, while others report being ordered to pay arbitrary fines or even being taken into custody without a reason given.
One victim, a 32-year-old migrant from Henan province, told HRW that three chengguan officers in Beijing got onto her cart and without explanation began confiscating the grapes she was selling. When she protested, they began kicking and cursing her. They said "F*** your mother. You dare ask us for a reason?"
Last year, three officers from a local city management bureau in northeast China's Liaoning Province were arrested after a man died when he was attacked trying to lay cement outside his home, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported. No details about the fate of the officers were given.
The New York-based rights group claims chengguan have also been implicated in the forced eviction of residents from their homes "at a time when alleged collusion between corrupt officials and property developers has created what a Chinese human rights organization has described as a 'pandemic of illegal demolition' in China."
HRW says the report is based on interviews with victims of abuse and other research in six Chinese cities between mid-2009 and 2011, and builds on work documenting violations by Chinese police and other public security forces over the past five years, including enforced disappearances, abuses in detention and torture.
"One of the alarming aspects of the chengguan is that there is no clear national framework -- a legal one, a training one -- for supervising and disciplining the chengguan," Sophie Richardson, HRW's China Director told CNN.
