On Chinese Black Jails

The Guardian today confirmed the suspicion of many rights activists that China is using Black Jails to detain petitioners who travel to Beijing to have grievances against local governments addressed.  The petitioning system has a long history in China but not one that is covered in glory for actually doing what it was intended for.  Rather it has now become an option for many Chinese that law professor He Weifang describes as akin to 'swallowing poison to quench your thirst'.  Here's some excerpts:

Large numbers of Chinese citizens – including children – have been held for days or months in unofficial "black jails" that appear to have emerged when a controversial detention system was abolished, according to a report published today by a human rights group.

Foreign and domestic journalists, Chinese human rights organisations and Chinese scholars have collected details of several jails as well as speaking to those who have been held there.
But the Chinese government denies such sites exist.

Human Rights Watch interviewed 38 former detainees for the report, An Alleyway in Hell, but withheld all names for fear of reprisals. Interviewees reported physical violence by guards, extortion, threats and deprivation of food, sleep and medical care.

"Two people dragged me by the hair and put me into the car … They put me inside a room where there were two women who stripped me of my clothes … beat my head [and] used their feet to stomp my body," said a woman from Jiangsu province.

Another, from Sichuan, said her guards warned that if she tried to escape they would take her to the male prison and allow the inmates to rape her.

A 15-year-old girl told Human Rights Watch she was abducted while petitioning for her disabled father, locked up for more than two months in Gansu province and severely beaten.

"The existence of black jails in the heart of Beijing makes a mockery of the Chinese government's rhetoric on improving human rights and respecting the rule of law," said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director for Human Rights Watch.