HRW: China's 'black jails' violate rights

BEIJING, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- Human Rights Watch Thursday called on China to close what it called unlawful "black jails" where a large number of citizens are held incommunicado.

The agency, with headquarters in New York, said Chinese citizens have been secretly held for days or months in such jails -- often found in state-owned hotels, nursing homes, and psychiatric hospitals in Beijing and other cities -- since 2003.

In a report titled "An Alleyway in Hell," HRW said government officials, security forces and their agents routinely abduct people from streets, strip them of their possessions and imprison them.

Detainees are generally petitioners who come to Beijing and other provincial capitals seeking redress for abuses ranging from illegal land grabs to police torture, the report said. Local officials, seeking to avoid receiving demerits from the government, use black jails to ensure the petitioners are punished and sent home, the report said.

In one case cited in the report, a 46-year-old woman from Jiangsu province was quoted as saying she spent more than a month in a black jail after being abducted by two people who dragged her by the hair.

"The government should move swiftly to close these facilities, investigate those running them, and provide assistance to those abused in them," said Sophie Richardson, HRW Asia advocacy director.

The HRW report said the Chinese government has denied the existence of such black jails.