On July 16, the international human rights organization Defenders released a report titled "Behind the Bars: A Survey of Chinese Prisons." Based on the experiences of 59 former inmates from 16 provinces and municipalities in China, the report points to widespread problems in prisons, including violence, prolonged solitary confinement, forced labor, inadequate medical care, restricted communication, and inadequate political indoctrination. The report concludes that Chinese prisons lack effective external oversight, and the rights granted to inmates by law are frequently undermined in practice.
The report interviewed Matthew Ladar, an Australian businessman who served time at Beijing No. 2 Prison from May 2021 to October 2024. He said he was placed in solitary confinement for 194 days, his legs were chained to bolts in the ground, his ankles were chafed and infected without medical treatment, and he was repeatedly subjected to electric shocks by prison guards. China's Prison Law stipulates that the period of solitary confinement for prisoners shall not exceed 15 days.
Prolonged confinement has been accused of constituting torture.
Li Fangping, a Chinese human rights lawyer residing in the United States, told this station that China's Prison Law stipulates that punishments for prisoners include warnings, demerits, and solitary confinement, with the solitary confinement period ranging from 7 to 15 days.
He said, "Solitary confinement for 194 consecutive days is clearly a violation of the Prison Law. Prisons cannot keep inmates indefinitely on the grounds of insubordination. Prolonged solitary confinement is actually a form of abuse and torture."
The report states that violence in prisons comes from both prison guards and inmates with administrative authority. Guards use fists, stun guns, pepper spray, restraints, and solitary confinement to punish inmates, and in some prisons, cell bosses, room supervisors, or corridor managers assist in maintaining order.
The report also noted that inmates who have been subjected to violence or denied medical treatment often find it difficult to file effective appeals.
Li Fangping, who has represented Hu Jia, Chen Guangcheng, and Ilham Tohti in their cases, said that there is almost no space for prisoners to obtain legal assistance, and lawyers usually only intervene in cases involving appeals.
He said, "When inmates suffer various forms of violence or develop medical problems in prison, lawyers cannot treat it as a normal business, cannot meet with inmates normally to understand their situation, and cannot enter the prison to investigate. This area is almost entirely a blank in the legal system."
Low-wage labor enters the commercial market
Forced labor was another key focus of the report's investigation. Respondents mentioned that prison labor commonly involved unpaid or low-wage work, excessively long working hours, excessively high production quotas, and inadequate security measures.
The report quoted Radal as saying that he worked 22 days a month, 8 hours a day, from February to August 2022, earning a total of 4.2 yuan over six months. He had worked in areas such as document bagging, label sorting, and medical supply processing, with some of his work involving China Post, Luckin Coffee, and medical supply companies.
Chinese legal scholar Wang Kuide told this station that the wages Radar received were shocking. The fact that inmates produce goods for extremely low wages creates unfair competition once these products enter the market.
He said, "Their wages are very low, and their production costs are also very low. When their products enter the market, there is actually a kind of unfair competition involved, which is definitely inappropriate. I think it is entirely appropriate to allow prisoners not to work."
The report also cited Hunan's Chishan Prison as a case study. According to media reports, the prison holds approximately 2,900 inmates, including Li Mingzhe, Cheng Yuan, and Ou Biaofeng in recent years. The report pointed out that the head of Hunan Yuanli Industrial Co., Ltd., which is involved in the prison's labor production and management, concurrently serves as the director and party secretary of the Hunan Provincial Prison Administration Bureau.
Political Education and Information Blockade
The report also focused on the prison's ideological reform system. Inmates were required to attend political courses, write reports on their thoughts and confessions, and some foreign inmates were required to participate even if they could not understand Chinese. Political education, labor, and confession performance were all linked to points and sentence reductions.
Wang Kuide said that from a human rights perspective, prisons should not force inmates to receive political and ideological education, but this problem is not limited to prisons.
He said, "Everyone in China is accepting this; even civil servants and employees of public institutions have to participate in political study sessions regularly. It's a systemic issue, and it's difficult to solve it from just one aspect."
Interviewees mentioned that inmates suffering from infections, hepatitis, and tuberculosis did not receive timely treatment. Radar said he typically only gets to speak with his family once a month for five minutes, and letters require censorship, often taking months to arrive or be sent.
The report cites official data stating that China had approximately 680 prisons in 2018, holding about 1.7 million people; no complete official figures have been released since then. The report estimates that, including those already sentenced but still in detention centers or awaiting transfer, the total number of incarcerated individuals may be around 2.34 million.
China passed a revised Prison Law on April 30th this year, which will take effect in November. The new law stipulates that information involving state secrets, personal privacy, or information whose disclosure may endanger national security, social stability, or prison order can be withheld from public view. Protectors believe this may further restrict the release of data on prison populations, deaths, medical care, labor, and human rights violations.
The international community is urged to investigate the prison supply chain.
Chen Yanting, a researcher at the Guardian Research Institute, told this station that the report once again demonstrates the serious inadequacy of rights protection for prisoners in Chinese prisons. This includes the legal permissibility of forced labor, an overly narrow definition of torture and abuse, and the fact that inmates with administrative power, such as cell bosses and production line leaders, effectively act as official agents, capable of inflicting violence and abuse on other prisoners. He said, “The international community should pressure the Chinese authorities to require multinational corporations to investigate whether their supply chains involve forced labor in prisons and to boycott or impose administrative penalties on companies that violate regulations; governments should also review their cooperation with China in the judicial and law enforcement fields and suspend the implementation of extradition treaties.”
This is a follow-up investigation by Protect Defenders on prison conditions after sentencing, based on their findings in Chinese detention centers. The organization recommends establishing an independent external inspection mechanism, disclosing information about prison businesses, working conditions, and the flow of their products, and allowing UN human rights mechanisms access to investigate Chinese prisons.
