III. Human Rights Abuses in Black Jails

[The guards] entered without a word, grabbed me... kneed me in the chest and pounded my lower belly with their fists until I passed out. After it was over I was in pain, but they hadn't left a mark on my body.

-A 45-year-old male petitioner from Anhui province detained in a Beijing black jail from February 22-29, 2009[77]

The individuals detained in black jails are often physically and psychologically abused. Many are deprived of food, sleep, and medical care, and are subject to theft and extortion by their guards. They have no access to family members or to legal counsel or courts.

Illegal Abductions

32 of the 38 former black jail detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch reported having been abducted by individuals whom they recognized as government officials and/or security forces from their home provinces, often in plainclothes. As one detainee said: "[Police and petitioning officials from my hometown] who weren't in uniform and who never showed me their official identification detained me."[78]

Petitioners, of course, have broken no law by simply being present in Beijing to carry out lawful petitioning activity. But even if they had broken some law, their abduction would violate both Chinese and international law governing arrests and detentions. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights prohibits "arbitrary arrest (and) detention"[79] and guarantees "full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent impartial tribunal."[80] Article 37 of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China stipulates arrests must be conducted "with the approval or by decision of a people's procuratorate or by decision of a people's court and arrests must be made by a public security organ."

The majority of the former black jail detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that their abductors, who commonly worked in groups of up to 20 individuals,[81] provided no legal justification for detention or any information about detainees' eventual destination or possible length of detention. One 52-year-old petitioner from Liaoning province detained in Beijing on April 16, 2009, said her abductors, who escorted her back to a month-long stay in a black jail located in her home province of Liaoning, were a complete mystery to her.

I was detained by retrievers from [my home province of] Liaoning who were in plainclothes and never showed me any identification. I doubt they had any [official] identification. They never told me the reason why they detained me; they never even spoke to me and didn't tell me how long they were going to detain me for.[82]

The majority of former black jail detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch reported being abducted off the streets of Beijing or other cities. One 43-year-old petitioner from Jiangsu province, who said she was seeking redress for illegal eviction and the demolition of her home, was detained while disembarking in Jiangsu from a train from Beijing by four men in plainclothes who did not identify themselves.[83] "They said I had to cooperate with their work, but they never told me what that work was, but I knew [my detention] was because of my petitioning."[84] She subsequently spent 36 days confined to a black jail in Jiangsu.[85] One petitioner from Heilongjiang province said she had been abducted and detained in black jails in Beijing and Heilongjiang four times since June 2006 related to her efforts for redress over a land dispute. The second time she was detained, on October 26, 2006, she was pulled from a petition application line at the Public Security Bureau petitioning office in Beijing by government officials from her hometown. She subsequently spent 70 days in black jails in Beijing and Heilongjiang.[86]

Those who were given reasons for their detention said the allegations ranged from "disrupting social order"[87] and "illegal petitioning" [88] to concerns that their petitioning efforts would disrupt preparations for high profile events in Beijing including the 2008 Olympic Games[89] and annual meetings of China's parliament, the National People's Congress.[90] Few resisted these abductions, recognizing that their abductors were government officials and/or members of the security forces. One woman spent 22 days in a black jail facility in a government building in southern Beijing before being released in Beijing without explanation. As she told Human Rights Watch: "I didn't resist. I was a lone woman. How could I have resisted them? If I resisted, I would just have been beaten, so I didn't bother."[91]

The majority of former black jail detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that their guards held them incommunicado by confiscating their mobile phones and preventing them from contacting either legal counsel or family and friends. Those procedures prevented a 54-year-old woman from Jiangsu province from contacting anyone outside of the black jail facility in a Beijing hotel where she was detained from September 23, 2008, to November 13, 2008.

At the [hotel] entrance I was subjected to a body search and my mobile phone, wallet and other personal items were confiscated without any explanation; [the guards] said that they would temporarily take care of me. I didn't want to be taken care of, but they grabbed me.[92]

In three cases, interviewees told Human Rights Watch that government officials or security forces had deceived them in order to detain them. Two of those former detainees said that they were tricked into custody by individuals who claimed to be journalists seeking interviews about their reasons for petitioning. "A retriever from our [home] county pretended to be a journalist from Radio Free Asia [and] said he wanted to interview me [but] it turned out that when I went [to be interviewed], I got locked up," a 34-year-old former detainee from Hubei told Human Rights Watch.[93] A 40-year-old former detainee from Hubei province told Human Rights Watch that he was the victim of a similar deception by a local government official who abducted him by initially "pretending to be a journalist" who wanted to interview him.[94] In the third case, police convinced a Heilongjiang woman to accompany them from her home on the basis that the local county chief wanted to meet her to "solve the [petitioning] problem."[95] The police instead escorted her to a recently-constructed government building, where she was confined for 55 days. Her captors described this black jail as a "petitioners' school."[96]

Physical Violence against Detainees

Violence and its constant threat defined the experience of more than half the former black jail detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch. Many petitioners bound for detention in black jail facilities are beaten and in some cases forcibly restrained in order to evoke compliance with their captors. A guard at the Beijing Financial Assistance Management Center,[97] better known as Majialou, has alleged that petitioners who resist transfer are "beaten and sometimes they have their bones broken."[98]

One former black jail interviewee we interviewed said that she was the victim of a threat of sexual violence, while in August 2009 there were media reports of a rape of a femail petitioner at a Beijing black jail. Due to deep social stigma around sexual violence and limited prospects of redress, such cases are likely underreported. On August 3, 2009, a 20-year-old student from Anhui province detained in a Beijing black jail was reportedly raped by one of her guards.[99]

The guard fled after the rape, witnesses said. About 50 detainees, including the student, broke through the wooden door and ran away Tuesday morning (August 4, 2009), taking two bloody sheets with them as evidence of the assault. About 10 (of the detainees) went to the local police station to report the rape, but say they were ignored.[100]

A 46-year-old former detainee from Jiangsu province who was abducted off of a Beijing street and forcibly returned to Jiangsu to spend 37 days in a black jail cried with fear and frustration as she recalled her abduction during an interview with Human Rights Watch.

[The abductors] are inhuman. Their car drove up to that place [where I was] and two people dragged me by the hair and put me into the car. My two hands were tied up and I couldn't move. Then [after arriving back in Jiangsu] they put me inside a room where there were two women who stripped me of my clothes... [and] beat my head [and] used their feet to stomp my body.[101]

Once petitioners are detained inside black jails, they are at the mercy of government officials, security forces and their agents. According to one Chinese legal expert who has extensively researched black jails, "Physical abuse [within black jails] is widespread and often very serious."[102] Such abuse is at odds with both international and Chinese law regarding the treatment of detainees.

The Chinese government already has a poor record of ensuring the rights and safety of detainees in official detention centers for criminal suspects in which due process and government supervision should be guaranteed. Official Chinese government statistics indicate that in the first four months of 2009 alone, a total of 15 detainees died "unnatural deaths" in official detention centers.[103] Official concerns about allegations of brutality and torture in official criminal suspect detention centers have prompted a government decision to equip all such facilities with closed circuit television security monitors by the end of September 2009.[104] But black jails offer no such protections or official oversight. Even the official Chinese state media has reported severe physical abuse at such facilities including the use of electric cattle prods to torture and abuse detainees.[105]

Two-thirds of the former black jail detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch reported being physically abused by their captors either at the time of their abduction, during the period of their abduction, or both: "There were absolutely no human rights, we were at the mercy of the guards [and] verbal abuse and beatings were [the black jail's] home-cooked food."[106] A 53-year-old woman in Liaoning province's Shenyang city suffered a dislocated hip on March 7, 2007, while attempting to resist attempts of Shenyang police to force her into a car and transport her to a black jail.[107] The woman said her abductors said they were preventing her from going to Beijing to petition during the annual meeting of China's parliament, the National People's Congress.[108] She was held for nine days in a local state-owned hotel, where she was denied access to medical care for her hip.[109] One former detainee told Human Rights Watch that she was the victim of a knife attack by one of her guards during her eight-day detention in a Beijing black jail in February, 2009. She told us that the guards "violently beat me and slashed my face with a knife, requiring 15 stitches."[110]

Former black jail detainees told Human Rights Watch that their captors demanded absolute obedience and would respond to any perceived acts of defiance with at times severe physical violence. "I was beaten [by guards] every three days...they said I didn't respect their work. I couldn't endure it and several times considered suicide," a 42-year-old former detainee from Sichuan told Human Rights Watch, describing her September 25, 2008, abduction and subsequent 55 day detention in a black jail in Chengdu, Sichuan province.[111]

In one case, a detainee's request for something as simple as toilet paper was the pretext for a "brutal beating," according to a woman who witnessed the beating while being detained in a black jail in a government building in Heilongjiang province from August 22, 2008, to September 24, 2008.[112] Another detainee said the constant physical violence and its threat created an atmosphere of "terror" in the black jail in Hubei province where he was detained for more than 14 months in 2007-2008.[113]

Several former black jail detainees told Human Rights Watch that queries about the legal basis of their detention also prompted violent reactions from their guards. One Heilongjiang petitioner, detained for 12 days in a local black jail, said her inquiries about the reasons for her detention sparked a beating by her guards which left her unable to stand or walk.[114] The petitioner said her injuries prompted her guards to seek her release for fear that she would die while in custody at the black jail.[115] She was released to seek medical treatment outside the facility. A former detainee from Chongqing municipality detained in a black jail facility located in a Chongqing nursing home was also punished by his guards for questioning the legality of his incarceration.

I asked why they were detaining me, and as a group [the guards] came in and punched and kicked me and said they wanted to kill me. I loudly cried for help and they stopped, but from then on, I didn't dare [risk another beating].[116]

Two of the former black jail detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch said their captors explicitly told them that physical mistreatment of detainees was acceptable to their superiors.  A 54-year-old former detainee from Zhejiang province who endured several beatings during 16 days in a black jail facility in the basement of a Beijing hotel in July 2007 said, "[The guards] said that we come to Beijing to petition once, then they'll detain us once, beat us once and then we won't try to come back to Beijing again."[117] Another former detainee from Jiangsu province who spent almost two months in a black jail located in a Beijing hotel, reported that her captors had explicit instructions on the degree of physical violence they could inflict on detainees. "They said that their boss had instructed them that they could beat as long as they didn't break any bones."[118]

Foreign correspondents who have visited black jails have also been beaten and detained. Reuters senior correspondent Chris Buckley's September 10, 2007, visit to a Henan province black jail facility in suburban Beijing ended with him being tackled by a group of men who refused to identify themselves, but whom Buckley suspects were plainclothes police due to their clothing and demeanor.[119] The men kicked and punched Buckley, confiscated his notes, detained him for two hours, denied his requests to contact his employer and his embassy, and threatened him with serious physical injury when he protested his detention.[120] Uniformed police officers who later arrived on the scene facilitated Buckley's release, but took no legal action against the men who had detained him and injured his upper body.[121]

Plainclothes guards at the same black jail accosted a television news crew from the United Kingdom's Channel 4 who visited the facility on September 14, 2007. The guards tried to smash the team's video camera and subsequently detained them at the facility for six hours.[122] The correspondents' detention ended only after police arrived and read a list of alleged "offenses" committed by the journalists, including "filming a government building without permission" and confiscated a videotape which police believed held footage shot of the black jail facility.[123]

Xu Zhiyong, a Beijing University of Post and Telecommunications law professor and activist against black jails in Beijing, has also been the target of violence for his involvement with petitioners imprisoned in such facilities. In a November 2008 interview with China's Economic Observer newspaper, Xu described being assaulted by plainclothes thugs apparently operating at the behest of a Beijing black jail where Xu was attempting to secure the release of detainees.

Shortly after [my arrival at the black jail], a minibus suddenly came. Three people jumped out and violently attacked the petitioners. Almost at the same time, my neck, chest and face were punched. The bare-armed guard fiercely kicked me in the knees from behind, trying to knock me down.[124]

Denial of Detainees' Access to Medical Treatment

The chronic violence and crowded, often unsanitary conditions in black jails lead to injuries and illness for many detainees. Several former detainees said that facilities lacked medical practitioners and several others said that authorities who operated the black jails were unwilling to allow sick detainees to seek medical treatment at outside medical facilities.

This denial of access to medical care is a serious violation of Chinese and international law governing the health of detainees. Both the Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment and the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners stipulate minimum benchmarks for detention facilities to ensure the health and wellbeing of detainees. Article 45 of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China guarantees Chinese citizens "the right to material assistance...when they are ill." The Prison Law of the People's Republic of China also stipulates that prison authorities are obliged to provide medical examinations for all new detainees[125] and allows those authorities to grant parole to "seriously ill" prisoners who require medical treatment.[126]

Detainees with existing medical conditions upon "admission" to black jails reported that their guards were unresponsive to their pleas for medical attention. A 40-year-old man from Hubei province detained for 9 days in March 2009 in a black jail located in a Beijing government building said that authorities provided no medical treatment for detainees.  "Who was there to take care of us? I think I could have died and they wouldn't have cared. They didn't take care of people who were seriously ill."[127] Other former detainees reported that black jail guards routinely dismissed their requests for medical attention with threats and insults. "The worse off we were, the happier our guards were."[128]

There was no medical treatment. I'm not very healthy and combined with the disgusting conditions inside, I was sick every day, but they wouldn't give me medical treatment and wouldn't let me go to see a doctor. [A guard] said, "You don't want to die here because your life isn't worth one cent. If I want you dead, you can die as easily as an ant."[129]

In at least two instances, black jail guards also rebuffed the efforts of detainees who tried to seek medical help for other sick detainees. A former detainee from Heilongjiang province, detained in a black jail located in a Beijing hotel from March 28, 2007, to April 1, 2007, said that her guards ignored her entreaties to provide medical treatment for a fellow detainee who "had convulsions and was spitting up blood."[130] "There was one female petitioner who had blood in her urine, so we told the guards and they said that even if we died [in detention], they didn't care."[131]

Several former detainees reported that their black jail captors also refused to provide medical treatment for injuries sustained in beatings by their guards. For one former detainee, a 70-year-old petitioner from Hubei province detained in local black jails on three separate occasions for a total of around 115 days, the denial of needed medical treatment by her black jail guards prompted desperate measures.

When I was detained I had diarrhea, cough, a cold and aches in my legs, but there was no medical treatment. I was faced with a total lack of human sympathy for my suffering... [so] I decided to starve myself to death. Three days later, they sent me to a hospital.[132]

A former detainee from Heilongjiang province detained from August 22, 2008, to September 24, 2008, in a Heilongjiang Ministry of Social Affairs facility which had been "completely transformed" into a full-time black jail, said that her captors denied her medical treatment for a broken toe on her right foot. The former detainee told Human Rights Watch that the injury was the result of a beating by guards on August 28, 2008.[133] A 35-year-old former detainee from Hubei province who had spent a total of 183 days during three separate periods of detention in local black jails from May 2007 to August 2008 also reported denial of medical treatment for injuries sustained through physical abuse by her guards. "I was beaten every day and had to slowly recover on my own. They don't give you medical treatment and don't let you go to a doctor."[134]

Food and Sleep Deprivation

Human Rights Watch research indicates that most black jails have a simple daily routine: detainees are confined to their rooms or kept in locked and guarded common areas of the facility where their days revolve around eating and sleeping.[135] Ten former black jail detainees reported that they were victims of deliberate food and/or sleep deprivation at the hands of their captors during their detention. The former detainees said that the black jail authorities implemented food and/or sleep deprivation for reasons including punishment, to instill discipline or docility, and, in one case, as a deliberate torture method.

In September 2007, a group of 30 farmers from Sichuan province went to petition in Beijing regarding a land dispute. They claimed they had been abducted from Beijing on September 26, 2007, and taken to a military base on Chengdu's Phoenix Mountain where they were alternately "tortured, threatened and starved" until their release on December 1, 2007.[136] The abuse reportedly prompted one of the petitioners to attempt suicide "because [the black jail guards] didn't allow me to sleep or eat in order to force me to write self-criticisms."[137] 

The conditions of a black jail located in a Beijing hotel compound operated by Henan province's Nanyang city reflects the privations that detainees typically endure. Chris Buckley of Reuters reported, "Former detainees said they had been confined there unwashed for days or weeks on a diet of rice gruel, steamed bread and restaurant scraps, with beatings dealt out by teenage guards."[138]

Former black jail detainees uniformly criticized the food provided as nutritionally inadequate. The 35-year-old former detainee from Hubei province mentioned above who was detained in local black jails for a total of 183 days told Human Rights Watch, "Most petitioner black jails are the same. The food is extremely bad, you don't get enough to eat [and] they often intentionally don't feed you or provide drinking water."[139] Another Hubei former detainee, the 70-year-old woman mentioned above who had been detained in local black jails for a total of around 115 days, echoed those sentiments. "The food was very poor. Every day a mouthful of rice, and a few vegetables. This is how [the guards] tormented me, to weaken the state of my health."[140]Another said, "The food was bad, and there was just enough so that people didn't starve."[141]

 A 54-year-old former detainee from Gansu province detained in a black jail located in Beijing's Fengtai district from June 25, 2008, to July 4, 2008, interpreted the routine food deprivation she endured while a detainee as a deliberate form of abuse by the facility's guards. "[The guards'] attitude was disgusting. The slightest lack of cooperation and they wouldn't feed us...they basically didn't consider petitioners as normal human beings. This was an extremely serious form of psychological abuse."[142] A 42-year-old former detainee from Shandong province said the routine food deprivation he suffered severely harmed his health while detained in a local black jail from November 20, 2008, to January 7, 2009. "Regularly on Wednesday and Friday we weren't fed and even drinking water wasn't available. My body started to break down.[143]

Two other former black jail detainees described food and sleep deprivation as a characteristic of the "study class" which their guards claimed was the facility's purpose. "This study class ...was about not providing food, not allowing sleep, not allowing contact with family, not allowing contact with the outside and restricting our freedom," a 43-year-old former detainee from Jiangsu province detained in a local black jail for 36 days in July and August 2008 explained.[144] Another Jiangsu former detainee, a 46-year-old woman who has been detained in local black jails on two separate occasions for a total of 61 days since October 2008, said the "study class" regimen of food and sleep deprivation was difficult to endure.

They said they were going to make me "study well" and give me "class." Every day I could only sleep three hours and they would at any time wake me in order so that I couldn't run away. They treated me that way...I was hungry every day, but couldn't get enough to eat. The second time I was detained for 37 days...I lost 20 kilograms.[145]

A 42-year-old woman from Jiangsu province detained in a local black jail from December 3, 2008, to January 16, 2009, said that her captors used sleep deprivation as an "extremely inhuman" alternative to physical abuse during her period of detention.[146] The most disturbing case of intentional sleep deprivation by black jail authorities we learned of was reported by a 53-year-old woman from Zhejiang province detained from July 16, 2008, to October 14, 2008, in black jail facilities in both Beijing and Zhejiang. The former detainee said that guards in Zhejiang used extended sleep deprivation to torture a male detainee whose wife was still at large petitioning. "His wife was petitioning, but hadn't been caught, so they picked up her husband and for four days and four nights they wouldn't let him sleep to force him to turn over his wife to them. It was despicable."[147]

Child Detainees

There is compelling evidence that Chinese government authorities are complicit in the abduction and detention of children-people under age 18[148]-in black jail facilities across the country. Some children are abducted and detained with a parent, while others are abducted and detained in the absence of their parents or official guardians. This abuse was first noted in September 2007 by a Reuters correspondent. He noted that "a boy aged about three" was one of the detainees at a Beijing black jail facility in the compound of a Beijing hotel operated by Henan province's Nanyang municipal government.[149] "The father of the young boy yelled out that the two had been held there for months."[150]

Detention of children in black jail facilities entails numerous rights violations, including arbitrary deprivation of liberty, putting children at risk by detaining them with adults who are not their parents or guardians, deprivation of education, denial of adequate nutrition and healthcare, and risk of maltreatment or even torture. These rights are protected by many international and Chinese laws.[151]

Three former black jail detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch also reported that their fellow detainees had included children. A 33-year-old former detainee from Hubei province said that she was detained from August 4, 2008, to September 28, 2008, in her own private room in a Beijing hotel along with her six-year-old daughter.[152] A 52-year-old petitioner from Liaoning province said that one of her fellow detainees at a government building in Liaoning's Shenyang city, where she was detained from March 4 to April 4, 2006, included "one old woman who had with her a boy of around 10 years of age."[153] A 36-year-old from Gansu province, detained in a local hotel from September 3, 2008, to September 14, 2008, noted that the facility also detained "many children, boys and girls."[154] This former black jail detainee did not specify the children's ages or their length of detention, but said that they were also compelled to attend the facility's "study class." In those sessions, guards warned participants to stop petitioning the local county government, and cautioned that their release hinged on signing a guarantee that they would cease their petitioning efforts.[155]

Another case of child detention in a black jail facility uncovered by Human Rights Watch concerned a 15-year-old former detainee from Gansu province. She was detained from July 10, 2008, to September 13, 2008, while petitioning in Beijing on behalf of her father, who was allegedly disabled due to a beating by a local government official.[156] The girl reported that plainclothes government officials and police, whom she recognized from her home county in Gansu, abducted her off of a Beijing street, and returned her to Gansu. She was held incommunicado for almost two months in government facilities including a hospital, a home for the disabled, and finally in a nursing home. The facilities were spartan and her fellow detainees in the nursing home facility consisted only of five unidentified elderly individuals. The girl told us:

[My abductors] said that our case had been circulated on the Internet and had had a bad effect on them. They never told me how long I would be detained. I resisted, I didn't want them to detain me, but I was beaten and was squeezed into their car. I wasn't carrying anything with me but my petitioning materials...which they didn't return to me after they searched me. Every day there was nothing to do but sleep and eat. There was no television or newspapers or things like that. There were no shower facilities and it was impossible to wash clothes.

Her age did not protect her from violent abuse by her guards: on September 11, 2008, guards beat her so severely that they knocked out one of her teeth. Her guards released her without explanation on September 13, 2008, due to what she suspects was the end of the security operation for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, which had focused on clearing the streets of Beijing of "undesirables" including petitioners.[157]

Threats to Petitioners

Almost half of the former black jail detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch reported having been threatened with violence or extended incarceration during their detention, to discourage future petitioning efforts. One example of a very specific threat was related to us by a 36-year-old former detainee from Chongqing municipality, held from April 18, 2008, to October 23, 2008, in a black jail facility located in a local nursing home. "Upon my release, [the guards] said if I didn't sign a 'no petitioning' guarantee, they'd put me in a nursing home until I died, cremate my remains and not let anyone know [what happened to me]"[158] A 54-year-old former detainee from Jiangsu province, held from September 23, 2008, to November 12, 2008, in a black jail located in a Beijing hotel compound, said: "I was forced to write a [no petitioning] guarantee certificate. [My captors] said 'If you petition in the future, according to the guarantee certificate, we can break your legs.'"[159]

Even if the individuals had been lawfully detained, which was not the case here, such threats would violate both Chinese and international standards. The United Nations' Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment protects detainees from "violence, threats or methods of interrogation which impair his capacity of decision or his judgment."[160] And the Chinese government's National Human Rights Action Plan (2008-2010) prioritizes the development of measures to prohibit "corporal punishment, abuses, insult of detainees or extraction of confessions by torture[161] and obligates police and prison authorities to undertake effective measures to prohibit "abuse (and) insult of detainees."[162]

A 42-year-old female former detainee from Sichuan province, held from September 25, 2008, to November 20, 2008, in a Chengdu municipality black jail located in a government building, was the target of an explicit threat of sexual violence to discourage any escape attempt. "They threatened me [that if I escaped, they'd take me to the male prison and let (the inmates) take turns raping [me]."[163]

Several former detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch reported that the guards also threatened violence against the former detainees' family members. One said that upon release her guards warned her that if detained for petitioning again, she would face imprisonment of eight to ten years, and that the authorities would also undertake unspecified "retaliation" against her family members.[164] Another former detainee recounted much more specific in their threats to her family. "When they released me, those [guards]...said if I petitioned again, I'd be responsible for the death of a family member."[165] Her guards did not elaborate on that threat.

Four former detainees described black jail guards threatening them with longer periods of incarceration under China's "re-education-through-labor" (RTL) system. RTL, which the United Nations' Special Rapporteur on Torture has recommended abolishing,[166] allows the police to unilaterally impose custodial sentences of up to three years while depriving detainees of any due process of law and judicial oversight.[167] "The study class [guard] said 'Don't do it again. Petition again and you'll be locked up for three years,'" said a 54 year-old former detainee from Heilongjiang province detained from March 28, 2007, to April 1, 2007, in a black jail located in a Beijing hotel complex.[168]

Theft and Extortion

Nine former black jail detainees reported that they were victims of theft and extortion at the hands of their guards. A 46-year-old former detainee from Anhui province detained for 24 hours in January 2009 in a black jail facility located in a Beijing hotel compound said the guards there stole the entirety of her personal belongings. "They took everything I had on me, such as money, my petitioning materials, identification, etc., and didn't return any of it."[169] International and Chinese standards for the care of detainees explicitly prohibit such behavior.[170]

Former back jail detainees said their guards particularly targeted for confiscation detainees' petitioning materials, which can include land title deeds, copies of local court judgments, and medical reports that constitute crucial evidence to support petitioners' quest for legal redress. Six former detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that their petitioner materials were not returned to them upon their release. "After we were detained, [my] mobile phone, money and petitioner materials were confiscated. When we were released, my money and mobile phone were returned, but my petitioner materials were not returned," said a 40-year-old former detainee from Hubei province detained for nine days in March 2009 in a black jail located in a government building in Beijing.[171]

Several former detainees also complained of guards extorting cash "fines" for alleged infractions and daily food costs during the course of their detention, and of guards demanding cash payments as a condition of release.

Two former detainees told Human Rights Watch that their captors demanded a 100 yuan (US$15) daily charge for meals, which one of them said consisted of a meager "two buns and cabbage soup without a drop of oil."[172] A 50 year-old former detainee from Zhejiang province said that during her March 10, 2008, to August 19, 2008, captivity in a black jail located in the basement of a Beijing hotel, her guards imposed cash fines for failure to comply with a daily five-hour involuntary sitting exercise. "They forced us to sit on a wooden bench, in the morning and afternoon for 2.5 hours [each time]. If we didn't comply, everyone would be fined and the [involuntary] sitting time extended."[173]

A 42-year-old former detainee from Sichuan discovered that her release from 55 days of captivity in a Chengdu black jail hinged on a 15,000 yuan (US$2,205) cash payment, allegedly to pay the "retriever" who originally abducted and detained her.[174] Her family eventually secured her release with a 5,000 yuan ($735) payment.[175] "When I was leaving, one of [the guards] said 'You won't petition again [because] this is the cost of petitioning."[176]

Some black jail authorities also appear to be paid a fee for each person they capture. A New York Times reporter who responded to a call for help in March 2009 from a petitioner from Zhejiang province detained in a black jail located in a Beijing hotel, found his rescue attempt complicated by the jailers' concerns about getting paid: "Confounded by the presence of foreign journalists, the men seemed unable to prevent Ms. Wu from escaping, although they begged her to stay, saying that she could not leave until a local county official arrived with their reward money."[177]

Duration of Detention and Release

Black jail detentions are in some cases temporary, ranging from several hours to several days, until local government officials escort petitioners back to black jail facilities in their home provinces.[178] Once back in their home province, the detention can extend much longer, up to 14 months in one case Human Rights Watch documented.

Detainees' release from black jails is usually arbitrary and unexplained. A report by Chinese Human Rights Defenders on the black jails system, based on interviews with former detainees, describes the process for release as follows:

[Detainees] can only be released if (1) their local governments, notified by those running the detention facilities, send officials to escort them home or to local (judicial) detention centers or (2) the local governments do not want to pay for their detention and agree to monitor them and make sure they stop petitioning the government or (3) the detainees sign a paper promising to stop petitioning, generally under duress.[179]

Human Rights Watch interviews with former detainees indicated that standards for release are not universal in black jail facilities. A total of 8 of the 38 former black jail detainees Human Rights Watch interviewed said that their captors provided no reason for their release. Another five former detainees said that their guards explicitly linked their release to the elapse of what the government considered "sensitive" calendar dates, such as the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.