State cleans house over detentions

By Xie Chuanjiao (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-04-20 07:44

Detention centers nationwide will be the focus of a five-month review by the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) to avoid sudden deaths among inmates.

The move was announced on Friday when it was also revealed there had already been 15 unnatural deaths in custody this year.

The SPP and police will evaluate all detention facilities by Sept 30 to check efficiency, security and safety, as well as examine the physical conditions of all detainees and record any injuries, said deputy procurator-general Zhang Geng at a news conference.

Inspectors will make a note of the time, location and severity of the injury, and advise on the punishments for the person or people who caused it.

They will also check up on the performance of the security officers and root out any examples of direct or indirect police brutality or torture techniques.

Retrospective investigations will be launched into any unnatural death as far back as 2006, while rules for the reporting of such incidents will also be tightened, the SPP said.

"From now on, in the case of a sudden death in detention, local procuratorial departments must immediately report it to the level above, who will take charge of the investigation," added SPP deputy procurator-general Sun Qian.

When dealing with such cases, prosecutors on the scene should also make preliminary judgments on the cause of the death by checking for any obvious signs of damage to the corpse.

He said: "In cases of suspicious deaths, a timely autopsy must be carried out."

China's detention houses, which fall under the management of local police departments, have come under scrutiny in recent months following several high-profile case of inmates dying.

Of the 15 deaths recorded by the SPP this year, 7 were detainees who had been beaten to death, 3 committed suicide, 2 died in accidents and 3 more were still under investigation, reported Beijing Times yesterday.

Centers nationwide will finish installing and repairing monitoring equipment by Sept 30, stated a notice on the Ministry of Public Security's website yesterday, while the footage will be passed on to procuratorates via the Internet to allow better supervision.

Chen Weidong, a professor with Renmin University of China, said the SPP review would see positive results but said, in the long run, "management of detention facilities should be transferred to Ministry of Justice".

He said such a reform would curb extraction of confessions by torture and maintain detainees' rights.