Club Lunch: Special Measures: Detention and Torture In The Chinese Communist Party’s Shuanggui System

In late 2012, China’s President Xi Jinping launched a “war on corruption.” An increasingly powerful, secretive Chinese Communist Party body — the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) — has been a key player in the campaign, particularly through its abusive shuanggui disciplinary system.  Shuanggui, which has no basis in China’s law, gives the CCDI the authority to summon any of the party’s 88 million members for investigation on allegations of corruption. State press articles on some of these fallen officials generally give a passing mention about them being subjected to shuanggui. Yet, little is known about what goes on behind closed doors in these unlawful detention facilities run by Party investigators.

The speaker shared the findings in this Report Release, which was the first in-depth investigative report to contain firsthand accounts from detainees, families and lawyers, as well as drawing on a wide variety of secondary, official sources, shedding light on a shadowy system.

Sophie Richardson is the China director at Human Rights Watch. A graduate of the University of Virginia, the Hopkins-Nanjing Program, and Oberlin College, Dr. Richardson is the author of numerous articles on domestic Chinese political reform, democratization, and human rights in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and Vietnam. She has also testified before the European Parliament and the US Senate and House of Representatives.