Prison and Detention Center ConditionsConditions in penal institutions for both political prisoners and criminal offenders were generally harsh and often degrading.
Forced labor remained a serious problem in penal institutions (see section 7.b.) and centers for administrative detention. In December 2013 the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee passed legislation that formally abolished the Re-education through Labor (RTL) system. State media announced that all RTL inmates would be released beginning December 30 but added that all preabolition penalties would be considered legitimate. Other administrative detention measures remained, however, including custody and education for sex workers and their clients and compulsory drug rehabilitation treatment for drug users.
Physical Conditions: Authorities regularly held prisoners and detainees in overcrowded conditions with poor sanitation. Food often was inadequate and of poor quality, and many detainees relied on supplemental food, medicines, and warm clothing provided by relatives. Prisoners often reported sleeping on the floor because there were no beds or bedding. Adequate, timely medical care for prisoners remained a serious problem, despite official assurances that prisoners have the right to prompt medical treatment. Prison authorities withheld medical treatment from political prisoners.
In August, one of the attorneys representing recently released human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng alleged that prison authorities kept Gao in solitary confinement for three years, underfed, underdressed for cold weather, and without access to sunlight.
When authorities detained Uighur professor Ilham Tohti in January, they reportedly placed him in leg shackles; authorities previously deprived him of food while he was detained at the XUAR Detention Centre in Urumqi.
According to a Chinese human rights NGO, Guangzhou authorities detained activist Wang Qingying ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen protests on the charge of “creating a disturbance.” Wang was reportedly hit, slapped, confined without adequate space and food, and interrogated for 12 hours at a time until he confessed. On June 21, authorities charged him with “inciting subversion of state power.”
Authorities did not make public information on the prison population. In a 2012 report to the NPC Standing Committee, the Ministry of Justice stated that the country had 681 prisons with 1.64 million inmates. The International Center for Prison Studies (ICPS) reported that in 2009, in addition to sentenced prisoners, 650,000 persons were held in detention centers, and it estimated there were between 100,000 and 260,000 pretrial detainees. The ICPS reported that in mid-2010 female prisoners made up approximately 5.1 percent of the prison population, and in 2005 juveniles made up 1.4 percent. The criminal procedure law that came into effect in January 2013 reiterates the requirement that juveniles be held separately from adults, but the Dui Hua Foundation reported juveniles commonly were held with adults in detention centers. Political prisoners were held with the general prison population and reported being beaten by other prisoners at the instigation of guards. Authorities did not allow some dissidents supplemental food, medicine, and warm clothing from relatives.
The law mandates that a prison shall be ventilated, allow for natural light, and be clean and warm. The law further provides that a prison “shall set up medical, living, and sanitary facilities and institute regulations on the life and sanitation of prisoners.” It also states that the medical and health care of prisoners shall be the responsibility of the public health and epidemic prevention program of the area in which the prison is located. In many cases provisions for sanitation, ventilation, heating, lighting, basic and emergency medical care, and access to potable water were inadequate.
Conditions in administrative detention facilities were similar to those in prisons. Beating deaths occurred in administrative detention facilities. Detainees reported beatings, sexual assaults, lack of proper food, and limited or no access to medical care.
Administration: It was unclear whether recordkeeping on prisoners was adequate. Authorities employed alternatives to incarceration for both violent and nonviolent offenders. According to a press interview in January by the director general of the Community Correction Management Department, approximately 1.7 million individuals had gone through community correction since 2003, with an estimated 667,000 individuals in the program at year’s end. There were no prison ombudsmen per se, but prisoners and detainees are legally entitled to submit complaints to judicial authorities without censorship and request investigation of credible allegations of inhuman conditions. The law states that letters from a prisoner to higher authorities of the prison or to the judicial organs shall be free from examination, but it was unclear to what extent the law was implemented. While authorities occasionally investigated credible allegations of inhuman conditions, the results were not documented in a publicly accessible manner. Many prisoners and detainees did not have reasonable access to visitors and could not engage in religious practices. Under article 52 of the prison law, “considerations shall be given to the special habits and customs of prisoners of minority ethnic groups.” Article 23 of the Detention Center Regulation has similar requirements. Little information was available about the implementation of these regulations.
The law requires that an official from the procuratorate investigate and monitor prison and detention center conditions.
Independent Monitoring: Information about prisons, including associated labor camps and factories, was considered a state secret, and the government did not permit independent monitoring of prisons or administrative detention facilities. Prisoners remained inaccessible to local and international human rights organizations and media groups. Authorities did not allow the International Committee of the Red Cross to access prisoners or perform prison visits in the country.
d. Arbitrary Arrest or DetentionArbitrary arrest and detention remained serious problems. The law grants police broad administrative detention powers and the ability to detain individuals for extended periods without formal arrest or criminal charges. Throughout the year human rights activists, journalists, religious leaders, and former political prisoners and their family members continued to be among those targeted for arbitrary detention or arrest.
Many activists were subjected to extralegal house arrest, denied travel rights, or administratively detained in different types of facilities, including black jails. Authorities also reportedly kept other dissidents under house arrest and denied necessary medical attention to some activists while in detention. According to international human rights NGOs, authorities detained, disappeared, or questioned more than 150 lawyers, activists, journalists, and dissidents before the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests. Various international media outlets reported that authorities arrested 20 activists, placed 44 under house arrest, and sentenced 15 to administrative detentions. Beijing authorities removed Ding Zilin from her home and placed her under soft detention. Ding had campaigned for truth and accountability for her son and others who were killed in the violent suppression of the Tiananmen protests in 1989.
According to NGO reports, there were 104 cases of detention in mainland China for individuals demonstrating their support for protesters in Hong Kong. Some were charged under the catch-all charge of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” while others faced subversion charges.
Despite being released from prison in 2011, activist Hu Jia was subjected to extrajudicial house arrest for more than 100 days during the first half of the year.
On July 8, authorities placed writer Tsering Woeser and scholar Wang Lixiong under house arrest for two days without explanation, apparently to prevent them from meeting with visiting foreign dignitaries.