DATE=5/4/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=CHINA-TORTURE (L-ONLY)
NUMBER=2-261968
BYLINE=LETA HONG FINCHER
DATELINE=BEIJING
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: Human Rights in China, a non-governmental
organization, has issued a report detailing what
it calls the widespread practice of torture and
ill-treatment in China. The new report is coming
out as China faces two days of questioning by a
United Nations Committee on its record in
preventing torture. VOA's Leta Hong Fincher has
this report from Beijing.
TEXT: Human Rights in China says the Chinese
government has failed to honor its obligations
under the United Nations Convention Against
Torture. Sophia Woodman, head of the
organization's Hong Kong branch says that despite
recent legal reforms, Chinese police officers
routinely continue to torture people in their
custody.
///WOODMAN ACT 1///
Torturers are rarely punished. Torture cases
rarely come to light because people don't have
effective avenues to make complaints and again
and again we see that even in the most serious
cases where people are actually beaten to death,
their families find it enormously difficult to
get the authorities to take action.
///END ACT///
Ms. Woodman says according to China's official
statistics, torture may have increased over the
past several years, and 1996 saw the highest
number of torture cases since at least 1990.
China recently revised its Criminal Procedure Law
to grant more protection to people detained or
arrested. But Ms. Woodman says, in practice,
police can ignore these changes because there
are loopholes that allow them to prevent
detainees from having contact with a lawyer.
In addition, the human rights group says, Chinese
law still permits the use of confessions obtained
through torture as evidence in court.
In his annual report to the National People's
Congress in March last year, Chief Prosecutor Han
Zhubin admitted that law enforcement officers
sometimes use force against suspects to
extract false confessions.
The Human Rights in China report says official
Chinese statistics point to over 400 cases of
confessions obtained through torture every year
for most of the 1990s. Ms. Woodman says the real
figure is much higher, since there are at least
hundreds of thousands of people detained every
year and investigators have little incentive to
stop the use of torture.
///WOODMAN ACT 2///
They know that even if they get some
administrative discipline for beating somebody
up, the evidence they got can still be used, so
we've found a number of quotes from scholars who
say that basically police find it easier to beat
people up than do proper investigations.
///END ACT///
The Chinese government has submitted its third
report under the Convention Against Torture since
it ratified the treaty in 1988. It faces
questioning before a U-N committee in Geneva
Thursday and Friday. (SIGNED)
NEB/LHF/FC
04-May-2000 06:06 AM EDT (04-May-2000 1006 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
|
Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list
|
|
|
