China's Death Row is No Picnic

From the first day of his detention, Chen was subjected to torture, as authorities sought to extraction a confession. The method was simple. Bronze wires from an old hand-cranked telephone were wrapped around his fingers and toes. The telephone handle was then cranked, sending an electric current through the wires. This is called: “being connected”. Repeatedly, the guards shook him and tried to wring a confession out of him. “Now can you remember what you have done?” they would ask. “Are you going to confess now?”

Chen said he had no idea why he’d been arrested. “The police never asked specific questions. They just kept on pressing me to give an account.”

When the police were not satisfied with his answers, they “connected” him. “As an instrument of torture, this old appliance is worse than being hit with a baton. It is extremely painful. You wish you could just die,” said Chen.

According to reports, Chen complained of his torture during his court appearances. He spoke of shocks to his genitals from an electric baton, forced drinking of hot-chili water, suffocation with a plastic bag, burning the soles of his feet with a lighter, squeezing his fingers with pliers, as well as the telephone wire technique.

The most horrific experience was when he was connected to five telephone appliances on his hands, feet and ears at the same time. He tried to commit suicide by biting his own tongue, and was hospitalized and treated with seven stitches before returning to prison.

After more than a month of continual torture, Chen almost surrendered. He told his torturers “Write whatever you like. There’s no need to beat me anymore.” Nevertheless when the policeman pulled his hand to sign on the hearing record, he deliberately erred in signing his family name, signing with a Chinese character that is slightly different from the one in his family name. He did this with the faint hope that “If I really died, maybe the superior court would find that my signature was false, and maybe they’d investigate…I didn’t want to shame my family name.”

Yang Hongyi, who was acquitted at the same time as Chen Ruiwu, as well as the other three involved but released earlier for the same case, all claimed to have been subjected to similar torture. _WorldCrunch

The president of the SEIU, Andy Stern, asserts that the Chinese economic system is a better system than the western one. One wonders whether Stern also promotes the Chinese system of justice? No doubt there are a number of people that Stern would like to subject to Chinese methods, beginning with Wisconsin governor Walker.