December 3, 2005 latimes.com : World News
Torture Still Common in China, U.N. Team Concludes By Ching-Ching Ni, Times Staff Writer
BEIJING — A United Nations special envoy said Friday that torture remains prevalent in China, as he completed a long-awaited fact-finding mission that provided a look into the country's secretive prison system.
"The practice of torture, though on decline particularly in urban areas, remains widespread in China," said Manfred Nowak, the U.N. Human Rights Commission's special investigator on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and punishment.
The envoy said much more work was needed to bring China's criminal justice system up to international standards, including reforms that would offer such basics as the right to a fair trial and the presumption of innocence.
The U.N. delegation appealed to Beijing to end the secrecy surrounding its death penalty system and reduce the number of crimes that qualify for capital punishment.
China purportedly executes more criminals than the rest of the countries combined, but it considers the exact figures a state secret.
During the two-week mission, which was long resisted by the Chinese government, Nowak and his team were allowed to meet with about 30 detainees in Beijing, Tibet and the Muslim-dominated Xinjiang region.
But many were afraid to talk to the U.N. personnel for fear of retribution, the envoy said. Those who did often requested anonymity.
Among the few willing to speak publicly about their experiences was He Depu, 49, a political prisoner sentenced in 2003 to an eight-year term for his involvement in the banned China Democracy Party.
He told the investigators he had been forced to lie prostrate for 85 days in solitary confinement, under a blanket with his hands and feet exposed at all times.
He said he was guarded by four armed men and was not allowed to get up except to eat and use the toilet. He often could not sleep for fear of moving his hand in the wrong way. Once he tried to touch a radiator to see whether it was warm, and as punishment was deprived of dinner, he said.
His wife was put under constant surveillance, he said, with police setting up a booth in front of her house.
The U.N. team found it difficult to speak with alleged victims or relatives in places other than prisons, Nowak said. The investigators were frequently monitored by security agents. The people they tried to visit were often subject to intimidation or were prevented from approaching them.
Nonetheless, said Nowak, an Austrian law professor, "it took us almost 10 years to arrive at this point. I see this as a major step."
China technically banned torture in 1996, but it uses a definition that is vague and does not meet international standards. Chinese police under pressure to resolve cases rely heavily on forced confessions, say lawyers and rights activists, and the techniques they often use are physically and psychologically punishing without leaving scars.
Forced confessions in China received wide attention this year when a man who had spent 11 years in jail for killing his wife was released after the woman he supposedly killed turned up alive.
The 39-year-old former security guard, She Xianglin, said he had broken down and confessed to the crime after 10 days of often violent interrogation.
Such cases are highly embarrassing for Beijing, which faces mounting discontent over official corruption and widespread distrust in the legal system's ability to deliver justice.
The fact that authorities allowed the U.N. delegation to inspect the prison system after a decade of refusals reflects the pressure they are under.
"This is an important symbolic visit," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of New York-based Human Rights Watch. "The real test is to see if the government is ready to implement the recommendations and show it's serious about eradicating torture."
Among the long list of recommendations made by the U.N. team is abolition of the practice of "reeducating" prisoners in labor camps, pretrial detention centers and psychiatric hospitals.
These facilities are often used to punish people critical of the government, activists say. Many of the victims are political dissidents, ethnic minorities, practitioners of the Falun Gong spiritual movement and members of underground Christian churches.
Some of the documented types of torture the U.N. cited are so well known they have special names. The "tiger bench" is a tiny, low stool on which a detainee must sit motionless. "Exhausting an eagle" refers to forcing the detainee to stand on a high stool while being beaten.