The use of torture to extract confessions from political detainees was rampant despite prohibitions against it in Chinese Criminal Procedure Law. Since Tibetan detainees are mostly charged with national security crimes, they are held incommunicado for months and sometimes never again found alive.
Torture against Tibetan political prisoners has been used as a method of repression since the Chinese occupied Tibet in the 1950s. Despite China’s claim that it adheres to international law which effectively bars the use of torture, the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) has gathered numerous testimonies from former political prisoners which demonstrate that torture is still…