By Hyo-Jin Paik
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia
BEIJING, China – Rights activists and petitioners in China are being abused in a network of illegal “black jails” in major Chinese cities.
Human Rights Watch said, “Since 2003, large numbers of Chinese citizens have been held incommunicado for days or months in secret, unlawful detention facilities known as ‘black jails’ by state agents who violate detainees’ rights with impunity.”
Government agents and security forces regularly abduct people off the streets of Chinese cities and imprison them after stripping them of their possessions. The black jails are operated in state-owned hotels, nursing homes and psychiatric hospitals.
Those who are usually jailed in the black jails are Chinese from rural areas who come to Beijing from rural areas of China looking for redress of abuses ranging from illegal land confiscation to police torture.
Detainees in China’s black jails. Courtesy of Reuters.
The detainees are held without legal justification and face physical torture, theft, extortion and intimidation and are deprived of food, sleep and medical care.
The “black jails” also function as holding centers where petitioners, rights activists and members of illegal religious groups are held before being transferred to other facilities.
One detainee from Jiangsu province said, “[The abductors] are inhuman…two people dragged me by the hair…my two hands were tied and I couldn’t move…two women…beat my head [and] used their feet to stomp my body.”
Another detainee said, “They never told me the reason why they detained me…and didn’t tell me how long they were going to detain me for.”
In addition, those in black jails are psychologically abused, including receiving threats of sexual violence. A former detainee said that the guards told her that if she ever tried to escape, she would be taken to a male prison where inmates would take turns raping her.
China’s Foreign Ministry has denied the existence of black cells in China. However, Sophie Richardson of Human Rights Watch said, “The existence of black jails in the heart of Beijing makes a mockery of the Chinese government’s rhetoric on improving human rights and respecting the rule of law.”
For more information, please see:
Earth Times – Rights group exposes China’s ‘black jails’ – 12 November 2009
Human Rights Watch – China: Secret “Black Jails” Hide Severe Rights Abuses – 11 November 2009
Mail Online – China accused of human rights abuses in secret ‘black jails’ – 12 November 2009
