Since its inception, The Rights Practice has worked on a number of projects concerning the treatment of people in detention in China. We support reducing the use of imprisonment, strengthening the legal and policy framework governing detention, and promoting the humane treatment of all prisoners and detainees. We are currently focusing on initiatives to promote greater use of bail, alternatives to custodial sentencing and improving conditions of detention through independent monitoring of places of detention.

We are currently working with prison reform scholars at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences to promote the independent monitoring of prisons with the financial support of the FCO’s Strategic Programme Fund. The project aims to design a new and replicable model of independent, external prison monitoring in order to help China develop a National Preventive Mechanism compliant with the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture.

We are also working to strengthen existing alternatives to pre-trial detention and reducing the rate of approval of “arrest” as a coercive and custodial pre-trial measure. We have found that detainees are very often not aware of their rights, and to address this, we support local partners to improve systems for informing detainees of their legal rights and for monitoring compliance.

Through our work on detention in China, we have become progressively aware of the widespread use of torture to extract confessions. As a partner in an EU-funded project on Cutting Torture, coordinated by the Great Britain-China Centre, we have supported the piloting of measures to introduce external monitoring of detention centres and the strengthening of public accountability. To inform the project, The Rights Practice produced a working paper and translation of China’s pre-trial detention centre regulations.

We also work with Chinese defence lawyers on the application of international law in the struggle against the use of torture and ill treatment of detainees.