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On September 24, the Chinese authorities They released Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig After more than 1,000 days in detention. The couple were not held in a regular prison, but were placed in a “Designated Residence in a Designated Place of Residence” (RSDL), with conditions that rights groups have compared to forced disappearance.
Both Canadians had limited access to lawyers or consular services and lived in cells that were open 24 hours a day.
Following the changes in Chinese criminal law in 2012, police now have the right to detain anyone – foreign or Chinese – in a designated place for a maximum of six months without being notified of their whereabouts. Spain-based rights group Safeguard Defenders says 27,208 to 56,963 people have passed through China’s RSDL system since 2013, citing data from the Supreme People’s Court and the testimony of survivors and lawyers.
“These reputable cases obviously attract a lot of attention, but they should not be removed because there is no transparency. By gathering available data and analyzing trends, it is estimated that between 4 and 5,000 people disappear from the RSDL system alone each year, ”said Michael Caster, one of the founders of Safeguard Defenders.
Caster estimated that between 10,000 and 15,000 had passed through the system in 2020, compared to only 500 in 2013.
The numbers include well-known names like artist Ai Wei Wei and human rights lawyers Wang Yu and Wang Quanzhang, who in 2015 were caught in a crackdown on human rights defenders in China. Other foreigners have also joined the RSDL, including Peter Dahlin, a Swedish activist and co-founder of Safeguard Defenders, and in 2014 accused Canadian and missionaries Kevin and Julia Garrett of spying.
William Nee, co-ordinator of research and promotion of China’s Human Rights Defenders, said the RSDL has been in operation for almost a decade since the use of the out-of-court detention system went from being an exception in its early days to using more tools.
“Before, when they took Ai Wei Wei, they had to put up an excuse that it was really about their business, or a tax account or something like that. So there’s this trend, a decade or two ago, where they would use a pretense of arresting someone when the real reason was their public participation or political opinion, ”Neek said. “It simply came to our notice then [RSDL] It would make it more “legal” routine, giving it the appearance of legitimacy and legitimacy. And I think that’s a good thing. “
Communist Party members, state workers, and anyone involved in “public affairs” are trapped in a similar parallel system known as liuzhi. Since its inception in 2018, there have been between 10,000 and 20,000 people in liuzhi each year, according to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The conditions under which both the RSDL and the liuzhi are treated have been equated with torture, and prisoners are deprived of the right to legal counsel. Lack of sleep, isolation, isolation, shock, and forced stress have been reported by survivors of both systems, according to multiple rights groups. In some cases, prisoners may be placed in a prominent “tiger chair,” which limits the movement of the limb during the day.
Together, extrajudicial proceedings in the RSDL, liuzhi and the like have “systematized arbitrary and secret detention,” Caster said.
Al Jazeera contacted the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs to request comments, but received no response at the time of publication.
Earlier, China blamed organizations such as the UN Working Group on Enforced Disappearances for misrepresenting the use of the RSDL, whose practice is regulated by its criminal code as an alternative to arresting a criminal suspect. He also said that according to the Chinese constitution, it is against the law to illegally arrest or deprive a person of his or her personal liberty.
Asked about Spavor and Kovrig during the arrest, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said that although the couple suspected of endangering national security, their “legal rights were guaranteed” and they were not held in “arbitrary detention” while their cases progressed. according to the law. ‘
The couple’s arrest in 2018 was seen by Canadian authorities at the request of the United States as a revenge for the arrest of finance director Huawei Meng Wanzhou. Meng was sought by the U.S. Department of Justice for assisting China’s tech giant in doing business in Iran, despite U.S. sanctions.
Shortly before his release, Spavor, a North Korean businessman who was convicted, was found guilty of espionage and sentenced to 11 years in prison, Kovrig has yet to face a verdict. The couple escaped further prison terms when Canada finally allowed Meng to return to China after living under house arrest, but for many people the RSDL is just the beginning.
There have been ongoing cases over the past year of Cheng Lei, who was arrested under the RSDL in August 2020 after being arrested on suspicion of “illegally supplying state secrets abroad” to a Chinese TV angel and Chinese human rights lawyer Chang Weiping. and for participating in a debate on democracy outside detention from early 2020. He was later arrested again after describing his experience in RSDL on YouTube.
Caster said such cases with well-known names are just the “tip of the iceberg.”
“For hundreds or thousands of members of civil society who do not have access to their Wikipedia, they may have the most time in one of these systems. And then they will be released in custody to wait for the investigation to proceed, ”he said.
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