Shift Seen in China’s Attitude on Torture

BEIJING —  Fu Minhai was questioned by police in Heilongjiang province nearly a decade ago along with several others on suspicion of theft, burglary and rape. After eleven days in custody and massive damage to his kidneys and related soft tissue, the 24-year-old was dead.

Alleged torture in Chinese police custody is not unusual. But in a rare legal victory for victims and their families, a court in September found two officers, Tan Xiaobo and Song Lintao, guilty of extracting a confession from Fu by force and sentenced them to seven years in prison.

“The family came under a lot of pressure for bringing this case,” said Peng Bai, the Fus’ attorney and a member of the Heilongjiang Far East Group law firm. “Ultimately, though, the fact could not be denied that he died because of police torture.”

In another rare move, Beijing has allowed the United Nations’ special rapporteur on torture, Manfred Nowak, to conduct an 11-day inspection tour of Chinese prisons, mental hospitals and other detention facilities.

The trip, which wraps up Friday, is the culmination of a decade-long U.N. effort to send a representative to China, an effort frustrated by repeated excuses. Nowak, an Austrian law professor, said earlier that he expected to have broad access to facilities and prisoners.

China outlawed torture in 1996, but activists and lawyers say the practice remains widespread. This has led some to question why the communist government would allow Nowak’s potentially embarrassing visit to take place now.

Analysts say several factors appear to be at work.

“They’ve played hide-and-seek with the U.N. for over a decade,” said Nicolas Becquelin, Hong Kong-based research director with Human Rights in China, a civic group. “The fact that the visit has gone ahead shows it has top support.”

Allowing outside scrutiny is part of a broader effort to make the Chinese legal system more accountable and reputable. The hope is that the growing social frustration over land seizures, corruption and the economic gap between rich and poor can be swept off the streets and into the courts, where it is less threatening to Communist Party rule. Beijing reported 74,000 protests across the country last year, up from 58,000 in 2003.

Reformist elements in the police force, led by Minister of Public Security Zhou Yongkang, also are keen to see their ranks become more professional, analysts say. A series of embarrassing cases has undercut the force’s reputation, the analysts add, whereas broader public support would help the police garner bigger budgets at a time when crime rates are rising and social pressures are becoming increasingly complex.

The visit also may have propaganda value. China has allowed the tour after one of its harshest human rights critics, the United States, imposed so many conditions ahead of a similar inspection of U.S. detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that Nowak refused to go. It also comes as the Bush administration is voicing opposition to a measure introduced by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) that would bar cruel or degrading treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody.

Beijing also has an interest in burnishing its international reputation at a time when critics have used its human rights record to justify a continued European ban on the sale of weapons to China. Domestically, the government is aware that its legitimacy increasingly depends on persuasion and the delivery of social services rather than force.

Although the visit and China’s ratification of the U.N. Convention Against Torture represent a start, experts do not expect significant change on the ground anytime soon. China has a host of impressive laws and regulations that are not enforced, and local areas have a centuries-old tradition of resisting central control.

Human rights activists say torture is a crutch for police not accustomed to proving their cases. Local public security bureaus traditionally have dominated the criminal justice system, a situation summed up by a Chinese expression: “The police cook the rice, the prosecutor delivers the rice and the court eats the rice.” Legal experts say local officials would resist careful review of their methods by a more vigilant judiciary.

Torture also is deeply entrenched under a system heavily reliant on confessions and rapid-fire justice to exert control. As far back as the 1930s, the Chinese Communist Party had initiated a “cleansing anti-revolutionaries” movement under which party members were arrested, beaten and fed chili peppers until they confessed and implicated others, according to a new biography of Mao Tse-tung.

Chinese Academy of Social Sciences legal scholar Chen Yunsheng outlined in a 2000 book various forms of torture used more recently. These included beatings with fists, boots and batons, sometimes involving cases of pregnant women losing their babies; false executions using unloaded guns; force-feeding of excrement; and “riding the motorcycle,” in which victims are ordered to assume a crouching martial arts position that becomes extremely painful over a prolonged period.

The nine-year battle for justice by the Fu family, ending in the conviction of the two policemen, required the victim’s parents to visit dozens of government offices and make repeated visits to Beijing from their home in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang. To make ends meet, they often slept under bridges on their trips.

According to the Shenghuo Bao newspaper, court documents and the family’s lawyer, Fu Minhai was picked up by the police Jan. 26, 1996. The procurator’s investigation found that the policemen, Tan and Song, beat Fu with a wooden baton, damaging his arms, legs, lower back and kidneys. A doctor surnamed Li who saw Fu shortly before his death told a local newspaper that the police refused to transfer the prisoner to the hospital.

Fu’s older brother was allowed to visit him Feb. 6. The authorities reportedly told the brother that Fu was gravely ill and no longer able to urinate, but that he could be saved if they received a payoff.

“I can’t take it anymore,” Fu reportedly said to his brother. “Tan and Song beat me most ruthlessly.”

After much pleading by the brother, Fu was transferred to a hospital, where he died that evening of his injuries. The hospital report cited acute kidney failure, soft-tissue damage and degeneration of the heart as the cause of death.

The family is now fighting for compensation and believes the seven-year sentences handed down by the Yichun People’s Court were too light given the nature of the crime.

In a further twist, one of the two defendants has so far evaded the law. Seven months before the final decision was handed down, Tan escaped from a fourth-floor lavatory at the courthouse.

Those in favor of reform say cases such as this successful prosecution and the visit by the U.N. rapporteur are hopeful signs, but more needs to be done.

“There’s a misperception that when police commit a crime, it’s just a minor mistake,” said Peng, the Fu family’s attorney. “We need more protection for victims and independent third parties to keep the government clean.

“There are many torture cases in China, and many are discovered, but the judgment is often insufficient,” he added. “The real challenge is to restructure the system and change old ways of thinking.”

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Ding Li in The Times’ Beijing Bureau contributed to this report.