E/CN.4/2006/6/Add.6
page 2
Summary
The Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment undertook a visit to China from 20 November to 2 December 2005, at the invitation
of the Government. He expresses his appreciation to the Government for the full cooperation it
provided him throughout the visit. The report contains a study of the legal and factual aspects
regarding the situation of torture or ill-treatment in China.
The Special Rapporteur bases his finding on a thorough analysis of the legal framework,
individual communications and on written information from and interviews with a wide array of
sources, including Government officials, non-governmental organizations, lawyers, victims and
witnesses, as well as from on-site inspections of detention facilities. Accordingly, he
recommends a number of measures to be adopted by the Government in order to comply with its
commitment to prevent and suppress acts of torture and other forms of ill-treatment.
Though on the decline, particularly in urban areas, the Special Rapporteur believes that
torture remains widespread in China. He welcomes the willingness of the Government to
acknowledge the pervasiveness of torture in the criminal justice system and the various
efforts undertaken in recent years at the central and provincial levels to combat torture and
ill-treatment. In the opinion of the Special Rapporteur, these measures have contributed to a
steady decline of torture practices over recent years.
Many factors contribute to the continuing practice of torture in China. They include rules
of evidence that create incentives for interrogators to obtain confessions through torture, the
excessive length of time that criminal suspects are held in police custody without judicial
control, the absence of a legal culture based on the presumption of innocence (including the
absence of an effective right to remain silent), and restricted rights and access of defence
counsel. The situation is aggravated by the lack of self-generating and/or self-sustaining social
and political institutions including: a free and investigatory press, citizen-based independent
human rights monitoring organizations, independent commissions visiting places of detention,
and independent, fair and accessible courts and prosecutors.
While the basic conditions in the detention facilities seem to be generally satisfactory, the
Special Rapporteur was struck by the strictness of prison discipline and a palpable level of fear
and self-censorship when talking to detainees.
The criminal justice system and its strong focus on admission of culpability, confessions
and re-education is particularly disturbing in relation to political crimes and the administrative
detention system of “Re-education through Labour”. The combination of deprivation of liberty
as a sanction for the peaceful exercise of freedom of expression, assembly and religion, with
measures of re-education through coercion, humiliation and punishment aimed at admission of
guilt and altering the personality of detainees up to the point of breaking their will, constitutes a
form of inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, which is incompatible with the core
values of any democratic society based upon a culture of human rights.