Chinese Legal Experts: Prosecutors Increasingly Torturing Defendants and Witnesses

March 25, 2014 by admin

According to legal experts, Chinese prosecutors are increasingly torturing witnesses and suspected criminals during criminal interrogations.

Prior to the implementation of criminal procedure reforms in 2012 aimed at barring the use of confessions obtained through police torture, police were often tasked with coercing statements from witnesses and criminal defendants. Since the passage of this law, responsibility for torturing witnesses and defendants has apparently shifted to the prosecutor’s office. Moreover, as many noted following the 2012 reforms, prosecutors may override protections against admitting confessions obtained through torture by simply declaring that the defendant was not tortured.

According to Si Weijing, a Shanghai-based rights lawyer, most abuses occur during “shuanggui,” the extrajudicial system for punishing members of the Communist Party. Unlike the nominal protections against torture outlined in the 2012 Criminal Procedure Law, shuanggui is entirely unregulated by the Chinese legal system.