VII. Recommendations

To The Government of the People's Republic of China

• Admit the existence of black jails; close them and set detainees at liberty; and punish any person who abducts and detains another unlawfully or who operates or facilitates the operation of a black jail.
  • The Chinese government's denial of the existence of black jails only ensures that abuses will continue and those who operate the jails will continue to go unpunished. Elimination of black jails should be a high priority for the country's leaders, who should allow the problem to be exposed through the national media to magnify deterrence, and who should announce swift and decisive measures to identify and locate black jails, liberate the detainees, and prosecute any individuals complicit in the abduction, detention, and abuse of persons in secret black jail facilities.
  • Because Public Security Bureau personnel have been complicit in the operation of black jails in Beijing and other cities, the Ministry of Public Security should consider creating an independent investigatory taskforce with the necessary manpower and legal heft to hold perpetrators to account.
  • Officials should also permit and seek input and assistance on the eradication of black jails from the United Nations' Committee against Torture and the United Nations' Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.
• Initiate a mass public education campaign about the legal rights of petitioners, the criminality of efforts to abduct, detain, and abuse them in black jails, and the due process rights of all criminal suspects under Chinese law and international instruments.
  • Chinese authorities should ensure that all officials and members of the security forces are aware of the legal rights of petitioners and the illegality of extrajudicial abduction, detention, and abuse of detainees in black jails.
  • The government should remind officials and security forces of their obligations to protect the legal rights of all citizens, including petitioners, and the potentially severe legal penalties that abuse of those rights entails.
• Establish an independent commission to investigate and publicly report on the existence of black jails and government efforts to eradicate them.
  • The commission should investigate the failure of the Chinese government at central, regional and local levels to enforce existing laws that outlaw black jails. The commission should be given unfettered access to any government records on black jails, as well as the authority to hold public hearings to collect testimony from former black jail detainees, government officials, and members of the security forces or plainclothes thugs operating at official behest who are suspected of involvement in the abduction, detention, and abuse of petitioners in black jail facilities.
  • The commission should invite the participation of domestic and international organizations, including the United Nations' Committee against Torture and the United Nations' Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, with knowledge and expertise pertinent to investigating and eradicating black jails.
• Establish a fund to compensate former black jail detainees who have suffered physical, sexual,  and psychological abuse by their captors. This fund should also be used to assist former detainees in pursuing criminal and civil claims against their former captors.

• Establish a new nationwide unit within the Public Security Bureau dedicated to investigating criminal abuses against petitioners.
  • This special police unit should be given legal authority to respond to reports of abuses of the rights of petitioners as well as the authority to enter premises which they have probable cause to believe are being used to house a black jail. This special police unit should include a rapid reaction squad available 24 hours a day. The government should also create a special 24-hour telephone hotline for petitioners to report any abuses to the new police unit.
• Eliminate the linkage between local and regional government officials' performance evaluations and the numbers of petitioners seeking legal redress in Beijing and other cities.
  • The current civil service evaluation system effectively punishes local and regional government officials for the presence of petitioners from their areas in Beijing. This system encourages the use of extrajudicial methods such as black jails to detain petitioners found in Beijing and is incompatible with the Chinese government's frequent assertions of the primacy of human rights and rule of law.
• Establish an independent commission to examine and evaluate the adequacy of the petitioning system in effectively identifying and addressing citizens' grievances.
  • The inadequacy of China's petitioning system contributes to China's black jail problem. The Chinese government should establish an independent commission to determine whether the petitioning system is capable of addressing the grievances of its citizens given China's rapid modernization and unprecedented social and economic change. The commission should consider the abolition of the petitioning system, but only if urgently needed legal reforms are enacted and implemented to enable Chinese citizens to fairly and efficiently pursue legal redress through local courts.

To Governments and International Bodies Funding Chinese Legal Reform or Concerned with Human Rights in China, including the United States, the European Union, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank

• Express strong concern to Chinese authorities about the existence of black jails and violations of the rights of detainees, emphasizing that the jails violate both Chinese and international laws and standards.
• Demand that such abuses stop, that the perpetrators be punished, and that victims be provided with reasonable compensation.
• Mobilize the United Nations' Committee against Torture to make the abolition of black jails a priority in all future interactions with the Chinese government.
• Mobilize the United Nations' Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to initiate its "urgent action" procedure for detainees in China's black jails and to undertake a field mission to China to engage with Chinese government officials and former black jail detainees on the problem of black jails.
• In all initiatives-including educational programs-aimed at contributing to the reform of China's legal system and training of its security services, make abolition of black jails a priority and raise the issue directly with Chinese officials.