Report details use of torture by Chinese security agencies \u2013 including beatings, stress positions and sleep deprivation \u2013 to force activists to confess \u2018crimes\u2019<\/p>\n
Benjamin Haas in Hong Kong
@haasbenjamin
Wednesday 15 February 2017 21.00 EST<\/p>\n
China\u2019s human rights situation further deteriorated last year as police systematically tortured activists and forcibly disappeared government critics while state TV continued to broadcast forced confessions, a new report shows.<\/p>\n
A creeping security state also attempted to codify much of its existing behaviour on paper, giving the police legal authority to criminalise a host of NGOs deemed politically sensitive by the authorities, according to the report<\/a> by the Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD).<\/p>\n \u201cThe Chinese government seems intent on eliminating civil society through a combination of new legislation restricting the funding and operations of NGOs, and the criminalisation of human rights activities as a so-called threat to national security,\u201d Frances Eve, a researcher at CHRD<\/a>, told the Guardian.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat stands out is the almost institutionalised use of torture to force defenders to confess that their legitimate and peaceful human rights work is somehow a \u2018crime\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Since coming to power in 2012, Xi Jinping has overseen a sweeping crackdown on civil society. In 2015, police targeted almost 250 rights lawyers and activists in what some have dubbed a \u201cwar on law\u201d<\/a>, and the effects of that campaign continued to be felt throughout last year.<\/p>\n Reports of torture while in detention in 2016 were rampant, with methods including beatings, attacks by fellow inmates on the orders of prison guards, stress positions, deprivation of food, water and sleep, inhumane conditions and deprivation of medical treatment.<\/p>\n In some cases, human rights activists were prevented from receiving medical care even once they were released.<\/p>\n Huang Yan, who was detained in November 2015, was suffering from ovarian cancer<\/a> and diabetes. Police confiscated her diabetes medication, and despite an exam done at a detention facility in April 2016 showing the cancer had spread, she was not treated and was denied medical bail.<\/p>\n When she was finally released, Huang was scheduled to undergo surgery last November to treat her cancer, but the authorities pressured the hospital and the team of surgeons declined to treat her.<\/p>\n Torture also took more overt forms. Last year reports also emerged that rights lawyer Xie Yang was subject to beatings and stress positions in detention<\/a>, with interrogators warning him: \u201cWe\u2019ll torture you to death just like an ant\u201d.<\/p>\n In November 2016, Jiang Tianyong, a respected Christian attorney, disappeared while about to board a train and police waited weeks to confirm<\/a> he had been detained. Jiang\u2019s whereabouts are still a mystery nearly three months later.<\/p>\n In a rare strongly-worded statement<\/a>, the European Union called for his immediate release along with several other lawyers.<\/p>\n