2015-02-17
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Pu Zhiqiang (front right) attends a seminar about the Tiananmen crackdown in Beijing, May 3, 2014.
Photo courtesy of CHRD
The ruling Chinese Communist Party allows a climate of impunity for those who torture and mistreat inmates and detainees, which is now endemic throughout the country’s judicial and law enforcement system, a network of rights groups told the United Nations on Tuesday.
While China ratified the U.N. Convention Against Torture in 1988, there is scant sign that it is being implemented in courts, prisons or police-run detention centers, the Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD), which collates reports from rights groups inside China, said in its report to the U.N. Committee Against Torture.
“[The treaty] remains invisible in Chinese court proceedings and the criminal judicial system,” CHRD’s report said.
“Despite domestic laws banning torture, judges typically ignore or dismiss torture allegations as well as lawyers’ requests to throw out torture-tainted evidence during trials,” it said.
Victims who try to seek redress or compensation are often targeted by the authorities instead, it said.
The group cited a number of high profile cases of torture and mistreatment of detainees in recent years, including that of activist Liu Ping, whose claims of torture were ignored in court and never investigated.
It also cited the many and complex health problems of top rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, currently under close surveillance after being released from jail last August, who reported months of torture at the hands of the authorities during more than a year’s “disappearance.”
Four other rights lawyers were “severely beaten” by police in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang in March 2014 after they tried to visit clients held in a detention center, it said.
Xi Jinping campaign
CHRD international director Renee Xia linked the growing number of torture allegations to a campaign waged by President Xi Jinping against “universal values” like human rights and democracy, since he took power in November 2012.
“With mounting evidence from the past two years alone, it is clear that the Xi Jinping administration has continued to use torture and other mistreatment to suppress dissent of its government policies,” Xia said in a statement e-mailed to RFA.
CHRD’s submission of its report to the U.N. Committee Against Torture comes ahead of a scheduled review of China’s compliance with the convention in November, Xia said.
“The Chinese government now has 10 months to clean up its act and bring its law and practice toward full compliance with its treaty obligations to end torture and impunity for torturers,” she said.
CHRD also pointed to deprivation of medical treatment as a “commonly used” form of torture by neglect.
It said three activists are known to have died in 2014 soon after their release following torture and the denial of medical treatment behind bars.
