The Great Debate UK
Shining a light on China’s secret “Black Jails”
- Phelim Kine is an Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch. The opinions expressed are her own. -
When 15-year-old Wang Xiaomei made the long trip from Gansu province to Beijing last year, she hoped to find justice for her family. Instead, she met with abuse.
First, Wang was abducted by plainclothes Gansu officials, who imprisoned her incommunicado for two months in a “black jail”—an illegal detention facility.
Two days before her September 13, 2008 release, Wang’s captors beat her so badly they knocked out one of her teeth. Wang’s victimizers have never been brought to justice.
Worse still, Wang’s experience—which stands in stark contrast to the Chinese government’s claims of fealty to the rule of law—is not unique. A new Human Rights Watch report released today, “An Alleyway in Hell: China’s Abusive ‘Black Jails’,” exposes the routine and severe human rights abuses perpetrated against detainees in these secret facilities.
Our research shows that Wang is just one of estimated thousands of people abducted off the streets of Chinese cities and held incommunicado for weeks or months. Inside these unlawful, secret detention facilities detainees are beaten, sexually abused, deprived of food, sleep and medical care, and subject to theft, extortion and intimidation at the hands of their guards.
And, as Wang’s case shows, children aren’t spared the dangers and indignities of black jail detention. These facilities exist outside of China’s official prison system, and are often located in state-owned hotels, nursing homes and psychiatric hospitals.
The soon to collapse China is hiring U.S. business school graduates faster then the U.S.. Economic growth is greater than the U.S. China is also on the verge of divesting in U.S. Treasuries. China built her economy by exporting chiefly to the U.S. That demand for her products has been devastated from our own economic collapse.The U.S. has been slow to acknowledge the business practices of our financial sector was the cause of the global economic catastrophe we all endure. It is evident many journalists and bloggers are in denial regarding this truth. At the end of the day unfettered unrestrained capitalism can no longer prevail. Resources are no longer abundant. Prices of raw materials have become unstable. There are no new markets presently that can be exploited. This fact has been one of the underlying factors in the labor market collapses. Goods and services are being priced out of reach.Human societies are going to have to seriously rethink how they conduct commerce and other economic activities. A degraded environment will severely impact economic activity. Often leading to complete collapse. This is the very situation humanity finds itself in right now. The plight of the Rapanui on Easter Island is a sobering reminder.