Group: China's opaque anti-graft probes rife with abuse

Sophie Richardson, China Director of Human Rights Watch makes a speech at The Foreign Correspondents' Club in Hong Kong, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016. Torture, solitary confinement and coerced confessions are rife in anticorruption investigations of Chinese Communist Party officials, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch analyzing one of the most secretive aspects of China's one-party system: the supervision of its own party members. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu) (The Associated Press)

prev next

FILE - In this Monday, Jan. 20, 2014, file photo, Zhou Wangyan, head of the Liling city land resources bureau, demonstrates how he was tortured by Communist Party anti-graft investigators who struck at the soles of his feet with wires, during an interview in his home in Liling in central China's Hunan province. Zhou said he was detained by anti-corruption investigators for 184 days, during which he he was whipped, forced to eat excrement, beaten and physically tortured, his legs pushed apart until his thigh bone snapped in several places. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File) (The Associated Press)

Copies of the new report by Human Rights Watch are seen at The Foreign Correspondents' Club in Hong Kong, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016. Torture, solitary confinement and coerced confessions are rife in anticorruption investigations of Chinese Communist Party officials, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch analyzing one of the most secretive aspects of China's one-party system: the supervision of its own party members. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu) (The Associated Press)

BEIJING – A new report from a human rights group says torture, solitary confinement and coerced confessions are rife in investigations of Chinese Communist Party officials detained on suspicion of corruption.

The study by Human Rights Watch analyzes the supervision of party members that constitutes one of the most secretive aspects of China's one-party system.

Four years into President Xi Jinping's sweeping war on corruption, rights campaigners warn that a key aspect is undermining the very rule of law the party says it is trying to strengthen.

The report released Tuesday focuses on the widespread use of "shuanggui" — a system of detention and interrogation of party cadres at off-the-books sites outside of the criminal justice system.

Human Rights Watch said it analyzed 35 detailed cases involving shuanggui reported in the media.