Report: Torture is routinely used in China to obtain confessions and silence human-rights lawyers

[tranquilium]

I totally agree that innocent people here get sent to prison too. His point (which people are completely ignoring) is that it's bad enough being sentenced to prison if you are innocent but what makes it worse is that you may end up a victim of "police brutality" or "torture". The excuse people were making is that the people getting this bad treatment were all "traitors" who we should show no sympathy for in the first place. The reality is not all of these people fall into this category. So instead of writing this report off as a "well they ALL deserved it anyway" maybe you should think about it a bit.

A common misconception in US is that ALL human right activists are held in low regard in China. They are not. There are plenty of people devoted their life to help poverty stricken children to school, or spent their life time in rural country side providing education, health care and professional support to the poor. These people are admired and their generosity are widely recognized by Chinese media.

One thing that should have clued people in is that for all this talk of "sweeping crackdown" by media such as CNN, what are actually the number of people arrested? Typically is in the double digits. You don't think a 1.3 billion population country like China only have a few dozen people working on human rights, right?

Like all justice system, a nation with stable foundation and functional justice system is designed to punish individuals guilt of certain crimes regardless of their social standing and occupation. Take OP's example of the Beijing based group, they are not convicted because they are "human right activists". They are convicted because they were found to hire false witnesses and use paid posters online to incite public unrest. Both of these charges are very real and punishable crimes under both Chinese and US laws regardless what they say they do.

 

[Dungeness]

There are hundreds of media outlets throughout the world. Some are biased one way, some the other way, and some try to stay in the middle. As you said you have to judge yourself where the middle ground is.

You are right, there are hundreds of news outlets, but so called "main stream media" are almost always in sync, and how many Americans are able to find information from other sources to verify what they watch on "Main Stream Media"? When is the last time you watch CCTV or RT? How many Americans actually using languages other than English? Until this day, CNN or Fox still prefix "communist" every time they mention China, just wondering why they have to do that?

Let's be honest, it is much harder for Americans to "judge yourself where the middle ground is" than Chinese.

 

[William Hung]

there's a weird phenomenon befuddling me a lot,and this phenomenon almost applies to all my overseas Chinese friends,which is:the longer they become an American or British(whatsoever) citizen,the more patriotic(towards China) they will be.I suppose it's the relatively free,open,mature western societies that widened their views opened their minds and gave them a broader,uncensored lense through which they can get access to inspect something they couldn't have gotten angles to unravel to themselves back in China.However,they all begin to defend China's government 360 degrees unconditionally like defending their dear big daddy after they benefit from something of west that their homeland environments can't or simply prohibit to provide.Maybe they just need a patriarchal figure more intimate to them to latch on,and obviously the westen society that more emphasizes personal value is not the right option for them.

An old thread once discussed about this and a lot of us came to similar conclusions as yours. Check out that thread here:

What did China's first daughter find in America?

My own conclusion was that, for them, poilitcs is no longer about what is right or wrong, or true or false, but it is now all about latching onto something unconditionally to find a sense of belonging (when they get alienated by their new temporary or permanent “home”).

 

[Kyle Sun]

maybe the tools are not that horrible,but fist,kick,binding also kill

Are you telling me only Chinese policemen do that ?
You surely never watch America movies.

I suppose all the world outrage over their alerting of Guantanamo torture offenses was just "fluff".

Guantánamo is gulag of our time, says Amnesty | World news | The Guardian



Other people have short memories (or conveniently block out obvious facts that go against their agenda)

Torture is everywhere including China .

So what's your point ?

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Are you telling me only Chinese policemen do that ?
You surely never watch America movies.


Torture is everywhere including China .

So what's your point ?

He's implying Amnesty International does a soft dance around US faults because it is "obviously" controlled by Americans. I countered with their blowing the lid on Guantanamo. That's hardly a soft dance as it caused world outrage.

Plus torture in US based prisons (ie not special rendition places for non-citizens) is difficult to hide (not that incidents don't occur) because you can't be denied lawyer/family visiting rights (unless they are also felons). They'd squeal immediately.

 

[Kyle Sun]

He's implying Amnesty International does a soft dance around US faults because it is "obviously" controlled by Americans. I countered with their blowing the lid on Guantanamo. That's hardly a soft dance as it caused world outrage.

Plus torture in US based prisons (ie not special rendition places for non-citizens) is difficult to hide (not that incidents don't occur) because you can't be denied lawyer/family visiting rights. They'd squeal immediately.

no need to be in jail.

Do usa police officers torture suspects in detention?

You donotnot remember the news that policemen tortured a poor black guy to dead in a car?

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

no need to be in jail.

Do usa police officers torture suspects in detention?

You donot remember the news that policemen tortured a poor black guy to dead ?

I didn't say it never happens. I said it would be very hard to hide since your lawyer can't be denied access to you,
Obviously if you die in custody your lawyer is going to alert people. You obviously can die in a local jail 10 seconds after being arrested before being assigned a lawyer or formally charged with anything.

 

[Zhang Fan]

An old thread once discussed about this and a lot of us came to similar conclusions as yours. Check out that thread here:

What did China's first daughter find in America?

My own conclusion was that, for them, poilitcs is no longer about what is right or wrong, or true or false, but it is now all about latching onto something unconditionally to find a sense of belonging (when they get alienated by their new temporary or permanent “home”).

呵呵，这还用得着discuss么？太明摆着了，这帮白痴海外职业“五毛“一看就是在国外混的不好，失落失意找不到存在感，所以才整天泡在这儿抱着他们共产党爹的大腿，眼巴巴盼着他们共产党爹秀肌肉给世界看，好让心里好过些，这种货们我见多了，典型的“被包养”心理，“小媳妇儿”心态 period

You are right, there are hundreds of news outlets, but so called "main stream media" are almost always in sync, and how many Americans are able to find information from other sources to verify what they watch on "Main Stream Media"? When is the last time you watch CCTV or RT? How many Americans actually using languages other than English? Until this day, CNN or Fox still prefix "communist" every time they mention China, just wondering why they have to do that?

Let's be honest, it is much harder for Americans to "judge yourself where the middle ground is" than Chinese.

sounds like you are still perturbed by the prefix"communism",which means you subliminally prefer to categorize the term "communism" as "derogatory" than as "commendatory",but given your constant, unflagging,touching efforts in defending your communism dad or hubby,isn't that a hilarious+colossal contradiction?Oh,maybe you are just one of the numerous miserable guts lost in the west,your strong desire of being taken care of by your communist "hubby" outweighs everything in your views,but you are in the west now,you are enjoying the western freedom while cheating on your communist hubby,so the more righteous you sound in a debate,the unscrupulous you are

 

[Kyle Sun]

I didn't say it never happens. I said it would be very hard to hide since your lawyer can't be denied access to you,
Obviously if you die in custody your lawyer is going to alert people. You obviously can die in a local jail 10 seconds after being arrested before being assigned a lawyer or formally charged with anything.

the key point is not you can hide or not.

the key is whether the situation is improved.

we ,china, has such problem.
I donotnot deny that. but we are on the right rail.

Speaking of excessive.use of force of police,
Chinese policemen.are much muchmore better than america policemen.

Chinese police will never put a bullet on the head of a unarmed young kid when he is running away from police .

usa policemen maybe do not torture too often,instead, they will shot you, not everytime but considerable frequent.

and the worst part is most of those policemen will not be sued

the story will be end up with a so called internal investigation and holiday.

 

[tranquilium]

I didn't say it never happens. I said it would be very hard to hide since your lawyer can't be denied access to you,
Obviously if you die in custody your lawyer is going to alert people. You obviously can die in a local jail 10 seconds after being arrested before being assigned a lawyer or formally charged with anything.

I bet to differ:

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

I bet to differ:

You still get a public defender and he has the right to visit you in the jail (which is near the courthouse). Whether he has 1 or 1 million cases doesn't revoke that right. But since he is a public defender he may be apathetic to your welfare and possibly even your family members may be apathetic to your welfare.

So if you can not afford bail (which is paid back BTW) or bond ( Bail bondsman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia which isn't free) or bail was not granted (you'd have to really do something bad for that to happen or have a history) you may be stuck in the local jailhouse with nobody giving a crap about you.
If the jailers start beating you every day your only option is to request a new public defender and hope for a sympathetic ear or contact the American Civil Liberties Union - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and complain.

He does bring up a good point that a public defender isn't "completely" free as you still need to pay some token court application fees to get that "free" lawyer.

It is true that in the US most people plead guilty to a *lesser* charge only because the punishment would be less than the penalty for the original charge, The prosecutor has to agree with this. If somebody murders 50 people and wants to plead guilty to just manslaughter for one of them the prosecution is going to reject it if the case is strong.

If you aren't guilty and you have an overworked public defender...well you better hope the prosecution doesn't feel you are guilty. Keep in mind the evidence found by police is submitted to the prosecutors office. He determines if there is a strong case not the police. He will determine the charges and what the minimum plea is. Your last line of defense is the jury. you also need them to feel you aren't guilty.

Edit: if the jury finds you guilty you can still ask the judge to throw out their verdict (although it is very rare that the judge overrules the jury - and he can only overule guilty verdicts). After that it is all about the "appeal process".

 

[Sanchez]

You think dragging you into a secret room completely insulated from the public sights and intentionally beating the **** outta you on an endless basis until you physically and mentally crash and "confess" to whatever those sons of bitches want you to confess is merely a policepower abusing that can be categorized or downplayed as police violence??

Look，if you need a airtight dome to surround you and manually adjust your mindset from time to time thereby you don't feel insecure because of falling too far from the line someone require you to toe,be their guest!

If you see submitting all your independent thoughts to those pulling the strings tying you up as a merit and are happy to be consumed by them as a no-paid-off sacrifice or contribution to the slow process of the changing you mentioned or to the facade of "harmonious society",no one stops you.

Overseas Chinese all tend to be revelling in the positives coming from their homeland while intentionally neglecting the negatives,they just desire to have a "Big Dad" standing behind their backs as soon as possible,it seems living in the west also doesn't help them to get rid of the "sheep" mentality.

How old are you really? Or have you got a personal experience of torture somewhere? Are you better than the students in 1989 crying out for democracy and justice? It's much worse then in terms of police violence or intimidation. I was one of activists in 1989 and have been overseas for years. We learned our lessons in our generation and we now want the best for the nation. Don't know why you pick out overseas Chinese to critisize, maybe nobody cared to listen to your story? Why do we need big Dad since we are already bosses of ourselves and others? IMO, you are not sheep mentality but rather those of rats. You are obviously mad as you may have a personal agenda that did not get enough attention.

Torture is such a trivial thing if you are devoted to a belief. Torture happens in every country no matter what systems they have. Whoever is against the machine of any states is going to suffer. Don't cry out like a baby if you don't know what's outside of China!

呵呵，这还用得着discuss么？太明摆着了，这帮白痴海外职业“五毛“一看就是在国外混的不好，失落失意找不到存在感，所以才整天泡在这儿抱着他们共产党爹的大腿，眼巴巴盼着他们共产党爹秀肌肉给世界看，好让心里好过些，这种货们我见多了，典型的“被包养”心理，“小媳妇儿”心态 period

是是是， 就你这屌丝样，也出来秀人权？无非就是做小狗叫，希望有洋爹关怀。中国人不管是海外还是国内都不尿你这号，吃饱撑的。凡是以为民主国家有正义和公证的都是傻B，没有哪里不是以利益为基准的。

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Torture is such a trivial thing if you are devoted to a belief.

Are you sympathizing with the Imperial Japanese mindset?
Something people call barbaric?

Torture happens in every country no matter what systems they have

Don't make such sweeping generalizations.
As somebody above mentioned people often confuse police brutality with institutional torture.

 

[Aepsilons]

Are you sympathizing with the Imperial Japanese mindset?
Something people call barbaric?

Barbaric when it suits one's agenda, i suppose. Tragic, quite tragic.

 

[tranquilium]

How old are you really? Or have you got a personal experience of torture somewhere? Are you better than the students in 1989 crying out for democracy and justice? It's much worse then in terms of police violence or intimidation. I was one of activists in 1989 and have been overseas for years. We learned our lessons in our generation and we now want the best for the nation. Don't know why you pick out overseas Chinese to critisize, maybe nobody cared to listen to your story? Why do we need big Dad since we are already bosses of ourselves and others? IMO, you are not sheep mentality but rather those of rats. You are obviously mad as you may have a personal agenda that did not get enough attention.

Torture is such a trivial thing if you are devoted to a belief. Torture happens in every country no matter what systems they have. Whoever is against the machine of any states is going to suffer. Don't cry out like a baby if you don't know what's outside of China!



是是是， 就你这屌丝样，也出来秀人权？无非就是做小狗叫，希望有洋爹关怀。中国人不管是海外还是国内都不尿你这号，吃饱撑的。凡是以为民主国家有正义和公证的都是傻B，没有哪里不是以利益为基准的。

Don't feed the troll please.

You still get a public defender and he has the right to visit you in the jail (which is near the courthouse). Whether he has 1 or 1 million cases doesn't revoke that right. But since he is a public defender he may be apathetic to your welfare and possibly even your family members may be apathetic to your welfare.

So if you can not afford bail (which is paid back BTW) or bond ( Bail bondsman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia which isn't free) or bail was not granted (you'd have to really do something bad for that to happen or have a history) you may be stuck in the local jailhouse with nobody giving a crap about you.
If the jailers start beating you every day your only option is to request a new public defender and hope for a sympathetic ear or contact the American Civil Liberties Union - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and complain.

He does bring up a good point that a public defender isn't "completely" free as you still need to pay some token court application fees to get that "free" lawyer.

It is true that in the US most people plead guilty to a *lesser* charge only because the punishment would be less than the penalty for the original charge, The prosecutor has to agree with this. If somebody murders 50 people and wants to plead guilty to just manslaughter for one of them the prosecution is going to reject it if the case is strong.

If you aren't guilty and you have an overworked public defender...well you better hope the prosecution doesn't feel you are guilty. Keep in mind the evidence found by police is submitted to the prosecutors office. He determines if there is a strong case not the police. He will determine the charges and what the minimum plea is. Your last line of defense is the jury. you also need them to feel you aren't guilty.

Basically showing that no system is perfect. Personally, I do think a mandatory public defender is a good thing, but the video illustrated a real world difficulty to overcome----resources. As seen here:
Public defender - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Public defender is a not a universal thing and US itself only begin to establish a system of public defenders in the 60s.

For China, well, barely three decades ago we are still rationing food in all part of the nation. I think it is not difficult to see why China has not managed to spare resource on some of the less critical aspects of social development.

Nowadays China is significantly richer and continuous reforms in the legal sector does show that modernization is in progress. It does take time though.