U.N. envoy says torture still widespread in China

? A U.N. special envoy declared Friday that the use of torture remains prevalent in China as he completed a long-awaited fact-finding mission that allowed him to peek at the secretive world of the country’s prison system.

“The practice of torture, though on decline particularly in urban areas, remains widespread in China,” said Manfred Nowak, the U.N. Human Rights Commission’s special investigator on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

The envoy said much more needs to be done to bring China’s criminal justice system up to international standards, including reforms to offer such basics as the right to a fair trial and the presumption of innocence.

The U.N. delegation also appealed to Beijing to end the secrecy surrounding its death penalty system and reduce the number of crimes that qualify for capital punishment. China executes more criminals than the rest of the world combined but it considers that statistic a state secret.

During the two-week mission, long resisted by the Chinese government, Nowak and his team were allowed to meet with about 30 detainees in Beijing, Tibet and Muslim-dominated Xinjiang region. But many people were afraid to talk to the U.N. personnel for fear of retribution, the envoy said. Those who did often requested anonymity.

Among the only prisoners willing to speak publicly about their experiences was He Depu, 49, a political prisoner sentenced to eight years in 2003 for his involvement in the banned Chinese Democracy Party.

He told the investigators he was forced to lie down for 85 days in solitary confinement with his hands and feet exposed outside the blanket at all hours of the day. He was guarded by four armed men and was not allowed to get up except to eat and go to the toilet. He often could not sleep for fear of moving his hand in the wrong way. Once he tried to touch a radiator to see if it was warm. As a punishment he was deprived of dinner.

He’s wife, who has not been charged with a crime, had come under constant surveillance just for being married to him. The police even set up a booth in front of her house.

The U.N. team had a difficult time outside the prisons trying to speak with alleged victims or relatives, Nowak said. The investigators frequently were monitored by security agents. The people they tried to visit were often subject to intimidation or physically prevented from approaching them.

Nonetheless, Nowak, an Austrian law professor, said of the mission: “It took us almost 10 years to arrive at this point. I see this as a major step.”

China technically banned torture in 1996, but uses a definition of the practice that is vague and does not meet international standards. Chinese police under pressure to crack cases rely heavily on forced confessions. Often the techniques they use do not leave any scars but still are physically and psychologically punishing.

Forced confession received wide coverage in China when a man who spent 11 years in jail for allegedly murdering his wife was released earlier this year after the woman he supposedly killed turned up alive. The 39-year-old former security guard, She Xianglin, said he broke down and admitted to the crime after 10 days of often violent interrogations.

Such cases are highly embarrassing for Beijing, which faces mounting discontent against official corruption and widespread distrust for the legal system’s ability to deliver true justice.