AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL NEWS FLASH - May 9, 2000
UN reports on torture in
China"The
UN Committee Against Torture's conclusions and recommendations made
in
Geneva today, demonstrate to the
Chinese government that the world is
watching
carefully, and that official
whitewash cannot disguise the
enormity of the problem of torture in China today,"
Amnesty
International said. "Now it is time for
action - for concrete and speedy
measures to implement the recommendations,"
Many of the recommendations reflect current debate among legal reformers
in China and have been made previously by the Committee. Amnesty
International welcomes the Committee's call for the Chinese government
to:
- Outlaw as crimes all acts of torture as defined in the Convention
- End all forms of
administrative detention (detention for up to 3 years
without charge or trial for
behaviour which is not criminal but is
considered "somewhere between crime and error").
- Ensure prompt, thorough, effective and impartial
investigation of all
allegations of torture
Amnesty International also welcomes the call for additional information
and
statistics on torture and it's
punishment, without which evalutation
of
policies in practice is impossible.
An important
omission is any reference to widespread
incommunicado or
secret detention. Amnesty International has monitored numerous cases of
torture leading to
death which occured during the first
interrogation or
within 24 hours of detention. These victims, as well as any who cannot
afford lawyers, are not addressed by the Committee's recommendations.
On this issue, the Committee praises the Chinese government for
"instituting timely access to lawyers for detainees" and recommends only
that the
government abolish the need for a suspect to apply for
permission to
hire a lawyer. Currently access to a lawyer is only
allowed after the first interrogation, the point at which detainees are
most vulnerable to torture.
Another important issue the Committee did not address is continuing
attempts by the
Chinese authorities to
supress information on torture by
[imprisoning those who report it, be they victims, relatives or
human
rights defenders. Several examples were brought to the attention of the
Committee, including the imprisonment of the daughter of Chen Zixiu, a
Falun Gong practitioner who reportedly died in Februrary after being
tortured in detention. The organization cannot imagine that the
Committee was satisfied with the response of the Chinese government to
their questions on this case. Such human rights
abuses threaten to
undermine the effectiveness of international
oversight mechanisms such
as the
Committee itself and should have been addressed.
"Despite these major gaps, the Committee's recommendations, if fully
implemented would be a
significant contribution toward the elimination
of systemic torture in China. It's now up to the Chinese authorities to
translate these fine words into concrete realities for the Chinese
people and demonstrate their commitment to the Convention."
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