Do not Be Complacent - the Gulags Still Exist

In 2012, the New York Times wrote a special report on "shaunggui," the secret detention system reserved for members of the Chinese Conmunist Party, an internal system that is separate from state justice. The NYT noted that "membership in the Chinese Communist Party has many advantages. Officials often enjoy government-issued cars, bottomless expense accounts and earning potential from belonging to a club whose members control every lever of government and many of the nation’s most lucrative enterprises. There is, however, one serious downside. When party members are caught breaking the rules - or even when they merely displease a superior - they can be dragged into the maw of an opaque Soviet-style disciplinary machine, known as “shuanggui,” that features physical torture and brutal, sleep-deprived interrogations." The Times used the detention of Bo Xilai, once one of China’s most charismatic and ambitious politicians, as its example, but Bo has not been freed to speak of his detention since his arrest. Not surprising since few who have been hauled into a shaunggui emerge, and those who do are terrified for themselves and their families and do not speak out. Over the last decade, hundreds of officials have committed suicide, according to accounts in the state news media, or died mysteriously during months of harsh confinement in shaunggui secret locations. According to the NYT, "once interrogators obtain a satisfactory confession, detainees are often stripped of their party membership and wealth. Select cases are handed over to government prosecutors for summary trials that are closed to the public." ~~~~~ But, we have recently had a window opened on the shaunggui. Four men, less than two years ago, were swept into a shuanggui detention center and have, with great courage, decided to reveal their experiences to the Associated Press. (1) The first to witness was Zhou Wangyan. He recalled for AP that he is a Chinese party member and local official who felt panic when he was placed in Room 109 : "He had refused to confess to bribery he says he didn't commit, and his Communist Party interrogators were forcing his legs apart. Zhou heard his left thigh bone snap. The sound nearly drowned out his howls of pain. He cried, 'My leg is broken.'" According to Zhou, the interrogators ignored his pleas. "Zhou, land bureau director for the city of Liling, said he was deprived of sleep and food, nearly drowned, whipped with wires and forced to eat excrement. The others reported being turned into human punching bags, strung up by the wrists from high windows, or dragged along the floor, face down, by their feet." Eighteen months after his leg was broken, Zhou still limps on crutches. Zhou says his detention in the shaungggui was brutal. "It was a living hell,...Those 184 days and five hours were not a life lived by a human. It was worse than being a pig or a dog." The men told AP that they were victims of political vendettas and want to expose what happened. When party officials were contacted by AP, they denied any abuses had taken place. But, according to AP, Zhou's account is supported by medical records, prosecutor statements, party reports and a notice confirming that police failed to investigate the abuse. The AP also corroborated information through interviews with family and friends. Local anti-graft officials on a Hunan online forum in February last year denied Zhou was tortured, saying he injured himself by slipping in the bathroom. Zhou, then 47, was taken away from his office in July 2012 by three men from the party's local anti-graft agency. He blames his detention on a party boss who bore him a grudge, and who was later removed by the party in an investigation without reasons given. Zhou spent most of his detention in Qiaotoubao, a model center for anti-corruption efforts. The local government conducts regular tours of Qiaotoubao to warn party officials against corruption. On an official tour in 2011, Zhou himself had noted the audio and video surveillance in each room and concluded that it seemed like "a safe environment" for detainees. But once there as a detainee, Zhou says his interrogators punched him and dragged him on the floor by his hair. They made him smoke 10 cigarettes at once with his face near lit coals. They pressed his face into water in a sink until he thought he was drowning. They slapped his face with shoes and broke four teeth. On at least three nights, they pinned him down and force-fed him feces and urine with a spoon. They dubbed the meals "American Western Feast" and "Eight Treasures Porridge." Most painful of all, they showed him a video of his 22-year-old daughter being detained for 48 hours and interrogated. Two weeks after hus thigh was broken, Zhou started slipping into unconsciousness. Only then, he says, did they let him go to a hospital under the false name of Wang Yan, with the story that he had fallen in the bathroom. Medical records show that upon admission to the Zhuzhou City No. 1 People's Hospital, his thighs, calves and feet were swollen, his skin red and hot and his left thigh badly bruised. Further tests revealed fluid in his thighs, kidney stones, an enlarged liver and swollen lymph nodes on his groin. Scans confirmed that his left thigh had broken into several pieces. A week after surgery, Zhou's investigators took him back to Room 109. It was three months later, in winter, when he cracked and signed a confession to having taken $6,600 in bribes. He was released in January last year. A family amateur video shows that Zhou hobbled out of the building on crutches. He was helped on a stretcher and into an ambulance. (2). Wang Qiuping, a party secretary in Ningyuan, said he was beaten by an interrogator who went by the nickname "Tang the Butcher." He was slapped often and forced to stand and kneel for hours during a detention of 313 days. His deputy Xiao Yifei told the AP he was hooded for more than a month and beaten by an interrogator. (3). Ningyuan party member Fan Qiqing was detained for month and beaten. Fan Qiqing, a contractor, said he was kicked, lashed and forced to take hallucinogenic drugs. A Ningyuan party official said only that the investigation involving the three men was carried out in a "civilized manner" and no one was tortured. ~~~~~ Critics say President Xi Jinping is clamping down even more strongly than his predecessor, with increased detentions of people who push for political change, protest censorship and demand that officials disclose their wealth. AP reports that the Chinese government is under great pressure to fight endemic corruption in the party by an angry, increasingly prosperous, well-educated and Internet-savvy public. However, the party's methods for extracting confessions expose its 85 million members and their families to the risk of abuse. Xinhau, the Chinese state media outlet, reported that between 2003 and 2008, almost 880,000 party members entered a shaunggui and 25,000 were stripped of their party membership and prosecuted. But, little is known or reported about torture in the party's secret shaunggui detention system for its own members. Chinese laws say only prosecutors and police have the right to arrest or detain people. Party experts acknowledge the internal detention system is legally problematic, but say it is essential because party members often control the courts and police. A party official said 90% of major corruption cases in recent years were cracked through secret detention. As for Zhou, prosecutors decided not to indict him, according to a notice from the Liling City Procuratorate. A week later, Zhou filed charges against party and provincial officials. A year later, no action has been taken against his interrogators. Strict censorship rules prevent Chinese state media from reporting on the case, so Zhou took the tremendous risk of talking to the foreign media. After the AP contacted Communist Party officials for comment, Zhou has received two calls warning him not to talk. Wang, his wife, and his younger brother got similar calls threatening "consequences." Wang was told she would no longer receive a salary or health insurance. Despite everything, Zhou hopes for justice. He told AP : "I still believe that the Chinese Communist Party is a good ruling party. I also believe that not too far in the future, there will be a place in the People's Republic of China in which we can speak freely, a place where my terrible case will receive a fair and just response." ~~~~~ Dear readers, if you are lucky enough to live in a country ruled by impartial law aiming at justice, you may sleep peacefully tonight. But never forget that we are a minority in a world where torture and mistreatment are the norm and fake law is the instrument of terrorism and suppression. Russia. China. Much of Asia. The Middle East. Much of South America. ~~~~~ "Eternal vigilance," please.