China: Torture by Police Dodges Reforms

Embargoed For Release Not for Publication Until: 10:01 in Hong Kong, Wednesday, May 13, 2015 02:01 GMT, May 13, 2015
(Hong Kong, May 13, 2015) – Chinese government measures since 2009 to curb torture by police and wrongful convictions have not gone far enough to combat abusive interrogations, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Government claims of a reduction in detainee abuse will be scrutinized by the United Nations Committee against Torture in November 2015.
The 147-page report, “Tiger Chairs and Cell Bosses: Police Torture of Criminal Suspects in China,” is based on Human Rights Watch analysis of hundreds of newly published court verdicts from across the country and interviews with 48 recent detainees, family members, lawyers, and former officials. Human Rights Watch found that police torture and ill-treatment of suspects in pretrial detention in China remains a serious problem. Among the findings are that detainees have been forced to spend days shackled to “tiger chairs,” hung by the wrists, and treated abusively by “cell bosses” – fellow detainees who oversee cells for the police.
“Despite several years of reform, police are torturing criminal suspects to get them to confess to crimes and courts are convicting people who confessed under torture,” said Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch. “Unless and until suspects have lawyers at interrogations and other basic protections and until police are held accountable for abuse, these new measures are unlikely to eliminate routine torture.”