STATE SECRETS: CHINA'S LEGAL LABYRINTH - HRIC

Detention, Torture, and the Death Penalty
38 HUMAN RIGHTS IN CHINA STATE SECRETS: CHINA’S LEGAL LABYRINTH
Detention facilities: In a regulation jointly issued by the Ministry of Justice
(MOJ) and the NAPSS, virtually all information relating to the administration of
prisons, juvenile detention centers, and systems of administrative punishment
such as reeducation through labor (RTL) is classified as “top secret” or “highly
secret.” 131 This includes the rules, plans, methods, crackdown countermeasures and
manpower allocation in penal institutions. 132 Basic statistics on the number of
people in detention are “secrets,” while “undisclosed” statistics on numbers of people
arrested and processed through the various forms of sentencing are classified as
“work secrets” that cannot be disclosed without authorization. 133
New regulations issued by the MOJ on February 14, 2006 prohibit beating or subjecting
inmates in prison or RTL to corporal punishment and other abuses. Prison
and RTL police who engage in these prohibited behaviors will be subject to punishment
up to dismissal or investigated for criminal responsibility. However, these
regulations lack mechanisms for victims to enforce the prohibition against police
abusers. 134
Provisions that classify as secret information on the management of RTL centers
and other sites used for administrative detention are of great cause for concern, as
they heap greater secrecy protection on a system already notorious for its lack of
transparency and accountability. Information about this behemoth administrative
system that incarcerates an estimated 300,000 people in around 300 camps is classified
alongside that of prisons and detention areas. However, while prisons incarcerate
people who have been convicted through a formal criminal process,
international monitoring efforts have found uniformly that in an overwhelming
majority of cases, the RTL system provides no formal procedures or protections for
individuals before they can be sentenced and imprisoned for up to three years, in
violation of both the ICCPR and Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(UDHR). 135