Torture and Intimidation in China's Secret "Black Jails"

by Matt Kelley · 2009-11-13 08:03:00 UTC
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A new report from Human Rights Watch documents torture and illegal detentions in China's "black jails" -- prisons hidden in state-owned hotels and nursing homes used to silence critics of the state.

Chinese officials deny the existence of black jails, but Human Rights Watch spoke with 38 former detainees whose horror stories or beatings, sexual assault and psychological torture weren't fabricated.

The jails are used primarily to detain people who travel to Beijing and provincial capitals to lodge legal complaints that have not been resolved at the local level. To avoid reprimand, local officials pay the black jails to detain and silence these petitioners. It's a system that doesn't only torture Chinese citizens but also intimidates people to stop them from filing legal appeals to uphold their rights.

The jails have expanded a great deal since 2003, when Chinese officials banned an above-ground process of detaining "undesirables" -- which often included legal petitioners from rural areas. The HRW report recommends that China first admit that black jails exist and then take steps to protect the rights and safety of citizens who use the legal process to uphold and protect their rights.

Read the summary -- and download the full report -- here.

Via Pete Brook.

Matt Kelley is the Online Communications Manager at the Innocence Project and a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Follow him on Twitter @mattjkelley.
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