China admits it runs illegal black jails

Human Rights Watch had reported earlier on the existence of these Black Jails but, the Chinese government had denied these jails were being operated. That is until today.

A magazine run by the Chinese government has revealed the existence of a network of secret detention centres or "black jails" in Beijing where inmates are often beaten or tortured.
By Malcolm Moore in Shanghai
Published: 5:21PM GMT 26 Nov 2009
Until now, the Communist Party has strenuously denied running black jails, despite a growing number of testimonies and evidence from former inmates.
However, a report in Liaowang (Outlook), a magazine which is written for elite government officials and published by the official Xinhua news agency, laid the system bare.
The victims of the jails are usually ordinary Chinese who have travelled to Beijing to lodge a complaint, or petition, with the central government that their local officials have ignored.
Every day, hundreds of petitioners arrive in Beijing from across China, only to be hunted down by plain-clothes policemen or even private security firms sent by their home province to "retrieve" them.
Since local governments are judged on the number of grievances that arrive in Beijing, officials are often determined not to let the petitioners file their claims. The Liaowang report said that the number of people employed by local governments to abduct citizens "can reach over 10,000".

Those detained had come to 北京　for redress of grievances with local governments or politicians instead of being allowed to file complaints many were arrested. If allowed to file these grievances it would reflect poorly on those governments which could draw the wrath of the central government.

A crowd of faeces-stained, starving figures with haunted eyes stared at us from behind the bars. Some looked cold and wet, as if they had been hosed down with water. Most of them were old, and some handicapped. They began wailing and pleading with us. ‘Let us out!’ they sobbed. ‘This is a prison!’ They showed us one ragged woman. ‘Look at this. She was beaten!’ They carried another elderly woman towards the bars who appeared to be paralysed. Guarding the inmates were young men in black jumpsuits. I knew they would stop us filming any second now, but at first the guards reacted slowly. ‘Those are the thugs that beat us!’ yelled one of the inmates, pointing. ‘They strangled and beat me!’

‘I’ve been held here for 14 days!’ an old man hobbling on a walking stick said to me. ‘In one room there are about 20 to 30 people. The conditions are awful.’

Recently Time magazine did a cover story 5 things we can learn from China:
Close off any form of descent
Treat your minority populations as less than equals and persuade thousands of Han Chinese to relocate to these regions further isolating them
Announce that you'll work to improve your human rights record and then do just the opposite
Displace or force hundreds of thousands of people from their lands all in the name of progress but fail to pay them market value for said lands while local, state and national political figures become wealthy off the deals
Prevent the redress of problems by the populace
Five things we can learn from China