Chinese Newspaper Reveals Government’s How To Manual for Police Abuse
jonathanturley
A newspaper in China has published an astonishing manual from a Chinese agency on how police can beat suspects without leaving marks. While crude in comparison to our own torture guidelines for waterboarding, the Chinese how-to manual is further evidence of the abusive training and tactics of the feared Chengguan (cheng guan) police, known as “urban management officers.”
The manual instructs police that “In dealing with the subject, take care to leave no blood on the face, no wounds on the body, and no witnesses in the vicinity.” The manual is used by the local law enforcement units known as chengguan, who are used to suppress protests and crackdown on citizens.
In the authoritarian system, it is rare for a newspaper to publish such an embarrassing story. Indeed, when asked the official from eijing Municipal Bureau of City Administration and Law Enforcement admitted to the publication of the manual but asked “Who put it up on the net? How did internal material come to be discussed outside?”
The manual is called The Practice of City Administrator Law Enforcement.
The Chengguan have a vicious reputation and were involved in an atrocity last year where they beat a bystander to death after he filmed them with his mobile phone as they suppressed a protest by rural residents. Th death of Wei Wenhua, 41, the manager of a construction company, resulted in jail terms of only three and six years for a few officers. The Chinese authorities often confiscate video phones after such abuses, here.
