Torture in secret prisons: the dark side of the fight against corruption in China
Grey, concrete building hangs over the street in downtown Beijing. Fully marked to the side of the streets, its entrance is blocked by barriers and fences.
Inside there is an organization that strikes fear into the hearts of some influential people from China. It's a secret prison, where according to experts, torture and ill-treatment are the norm.
The Central Commission for discipline inspection (CCDI) is the body mandated to investigate all of the 88 million members of the Communist party of China for corruption. Massacre-corruption is one of the main goals of China's President XI Jinping since coming to power in 2012. Several senior politicians in China have been caught for corruption, including former security chief Zhou Yongkang and former head of the people's liberation army, Bosun.
Nearly 300 thousand people were accused of committing crimes vaccinated last year, according to Deputy Secretary of the CCDI BU Aliaga. "It's a big question: is the attempt by the anti-corruption or political witch hunt?" said Andrew Wedeman, head of the Initiative for the study of China Georgia state University.
Party corruption fighters have powerful tools, chief among which is the ability to summon any member of the party to "the appointed time and place." Prisoners are held in secret, for an indefinite period of time, during which they brutally interrogated, sometimes, they die during questioning, according to a new report from Human Rights Watch.
The system operates in secret, with a large number of detainees held in hotel rooms and makeshift places of detention, usually with soft walls and never above the first floor to prevent suicide, said the China expert at the school of University College Cork.
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