CHRD submission to WGEID on short-term enforced disappearances
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Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD)
Submission to Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID)
on Systematic Use of Short-Term Enforced Disappearances against Prisoners of Conscience in the
People’s Republic of China
October 2025
Introduction
In October 2024, the Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED) and the Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) issued the Joint statement on so-called “short-term enforced disappearances” that described them as a “grave human rights violation.” This follows a 2016 statement ahead of the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, in which the two groups of experts wrote, “There is no time limit, no matter how short, for an enforced disappearance to occur. Every minute counts when a person is put outside the protection of the law.” In 2011, the WGEID raised concerns about a wave of enforced disappearances by Chinese authorities during the “Jasmine Crackdown,” which sought to extinguish human rights activism. “Even short-term secret detentions can qualify as enforced disappearances,” the group said.
CHRD is now writing to provide information on short-term enforced disappearances during the deprivation of liberty of prisoners of conscience (PoC) in China. CHRD uses the term “prisoner of conscience” (PoC) to refer to an individual who has been deprived of their liberty for peacefully exercising or defending human rights (including those who have not yet been convicted and sentenced to prison).
CHRD has documented a total of 4,003 such cases of deprivation of liberty between 2019 and 2025. We believe that many of these individuals have also been subjected to short-term enforced disappearances, and that this abuse is widespread across China’s criminal justice system.
CHRD routinely documents individuals having been seized without a warrant, held incommunicado, and their family members and lawyers are not notified of the individuals’ location or permitted access to the individual beyond the international standard of 48 hours. Their whereabouts may remain unknown for several days, and it may take as long as weeks or months for the individual to be granted access to a lawyer of their own choice to verify their location in violation of Chinese law. Detainees do not have the right under Chinese law to meet with or correspond with their family members during pre-trial detention, despite the international principle of the presumption of innocence. CHRD believe this treatment renders the individual a victim of an enforced disappearance.
Chinese authorities sometimes use accusations of “endangering national security” to justify periods of short-term enforced disappearances. During short-term enforced disappearances, some PoCs are subjected to torture. CHRD’s research shows that these disappearances range from several days to several months, and that in most cases the individual was not released and instead subjected to further periods of arbitrary detention. These short-term enforced disappearances often take place at detention centers or in secret detention facilities under the “residential surveillance at a designated location (RSDL) system.
Short-term enforced disappearances
No warrant is presented
Chinese authorities often detain human rights defender (HRDs) without presenting a warrant, as required under international and Chinese law. For example, five UN Special Procedures raised concerns that an HRD detained in 2022 without a warrant being presented. CHRD documented that the group of police officers who detained Chinese web developer Niu Tengyu in August 2019 had done so without presenting any identification or an arrest warrant, and provided no explanation for why they were detaining him. Three Uyghur community leaders who were arbitrary detained and disappeared by authorities were not known to have been shown warrants when detained between 2016 and 2018 in the Uyghur region. In 2022, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued an opinion that determined Chinese authorities had subjected these three Uyghurs to arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance.
Families are not promptly notified
Chinese authorities frequently fail to properly notify family members—in some cases for days, weeks, or months—of their loved ones’ detention, as required under international and Chinese law. Niu Tengyu’s family never received an official written notification of his detention in 2019, and were only orally told by police eight days after his initial detention that he was being held on suspicion of one criminal charge (which was then repeatedly changed over the course of his detention). Human rights lawyer Xie Yang’s father did not receive a detention notice for over a month after police seized him from his home. While the detention notice his family received listed Changsha No.1 Detention Center as the location of his detention, the family could not find any information about him for months. They eventually learned that police had deliberately obscured Xie’s identity by entering only his surname into their records, instead referring to him by a different name, making it hard to track his whereabouts. The families of two activists never received criminal detention notices after police took the two activists into custody on September 19, 2021 and only received arrest notices dated October 17, 2022. When police detained a filmmaker in 2023, five Special Procedures noted that it was unknown when his family received the written notification.
Denial of prompt access to a lawyer of own choice
Short-term enforced disappearances prevent prompt access to a lawyer of one’s own choice, as required under international law and Chinese law. These visits are the only opportunity for an independent confirmation of the location and wellbeing of an individual taken into police custody. An activist did not have access to a lawyer until early July 2019, over three months after being taken into police custody. When a lawyer requested to meet her during this period, they were told by the authorities that such a visit would “endanger national security.” Human rights lawyer Xie Yang’s first meeting with his lawyer was six months after he was taken into custody, his second meeting was nine months later, and this third meeting was another ten months later. These were the only visits prison authorities allowed over a period of two years. Web developer Niu Tengyu’s first meeting with his lawyer was over two months after being detained; the lawyer then dropped him as a client after being threatened by police.
Secret detention under the “residential surveillance at a designated location” system
CHRD has documented 214 prisoners of conscience who have been held in the RSDL system at some point during their period of deprivation of liberty between 2015 and 2025, a figure which CHRD believes is an undercount due to the difficulty in accessing information in China.[1] Furthermore, of these cases, CHRD found that 75 individuals had been charged with public order crimes that did not fall under the legal requirements of “endangering national security” or “terrorism” crimes. These statistics, while incomplete, illustrate that the RSDL system is used relatively frequently despite being a form of secret detention and enforced disappearance; the Committee against Torture, multiple Special Procedures, and numerous Member States during China’s Third and Fourth Universal Periodic Reviews called on the Chinese government to abolish the practice.[2]
For example, web developer Niu Tengyu was moved from a detention center to a secret RSDL facility between December 10, 2019 to January 22, 2020. He later told his lawyers that he was subjected to torture while in RSDL. Special Procedures noted that a women’s rights activist was put into RSDL in November 2019; authorities said it would help “transform her thinking” as 37 days of criminal detention had not achieved that outcome. Special Procedures expressed concern that police placed three HRDs in RSDL after detaining them in December 2019. Those defenders’ family members and lawyers were only informed orally of the detentions, and authorities denied visits by lawyers. Special Procedures also raised the disappearance of four HRDs in 2017 into RDSL.
Torture during incommunicado detention
Many individuals subjected to short-term enforced disappearance have faced torture during this period of incommunicado detention. In some instances, this torture is inflicted in order to force a confession and the confession is then used at trial as a basis to convict them despite this being illegal under Chinese law. Web developer Niu Tengyu told his lawyers he had been repeatedly tortured in pre-trial detention and while forcibly disappeared in RSDL. Human rights lawyer Xie Yang told his lawyer of a 13-day period in January 2022 when detention center authorities, in an effort to get him to confess, chained and beat him during interrogations, limited his food, and did not allow other prisoners to talk to him. Special procedures also highlighted that lawyer Xie Yang was coerced into confessing and signing false statements and transcripts after prolonged torture and ill-treatment in RSDL in 2017.
Violations of Chinese Law
These practices in many instances violate Chinese laws and illustrate Chinese law’s non-compliance with international standards.
Under the Criminal Procedure Law (CPL), police must show a warrant when they detain an individual and must notify the family within 24 hours (Articles 85) and must do the same when they formally arrest an individual (Article 93). Both provisions contain a vague phrase that permits not notifying the family: “unless there is no way to inform [the family.” Article 85 permits police to not notify family members of individuals detained on suspicion of crimes that “endanger national security” or “terrorism” crime if the “notification might obstruct the investigation.” There is also no effective way for a suspect to challenge these designations. There is no provision under Chinese law that permits family members to visit and correspond with their loved one while in pre-trial detention.
A detainee has the right to a lawyer under Article 34, and the detention center must arrange a meeting within 48 hours of a request being made (Article 39), which does not confirm with international standards which call for a meeting within 48 hours of the time of detention.
CPL Article 75 also establishes the RSDL system. Family members must be notified within 24 hours of an individual being placed in RSDL, though again with the caveat “unless there is no way to inform them.” Under Article 75, the provision of Article 34 of a right to a lawyer is applied—though not Article 39 on arranging a meeting within 48 hours. Furthermore, under Article 75 an individual may only be held in RSDL if they have no fixed address or are suspected of national security or terrorism charges. However, several cases show individuals held under RSDL despite being accused of public order or other offences that do not fall under the categories of “national security” or “terrorism.”
In June 2025, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate and Ministry of Public Security issued regulations on the application of RSDL. These regulations clarify measures around RSDL, including requirements that family members should be informed of the location of the RSDL facility. But the regulations do not address the fundamental issue: that detaining an individual in a parallel detention facility without access to their families and lawyers is an enforced disappearance, which is prohibited under international law. While the regulations outline accountability provisions for violating these previsions or laws around torture, CHRD is not aware of any instance of an officer or police unit being held accountable for rights violations in the cases of HRDs held under RSDL that we have examined.
Articles 56, 57, and 58 of the CPL exclude evidence obtained through torture and require the procuratorate and courts to investigate such allegations after receiving a report. However, Article 58 states that, “Those applying to have illegally gathered evidence excluded shall provide relevant leads or other materials.” Under regulations from the Supreme People’s Court, leads and materials are defined as: “’Leads’ refers to specific content and indicated persons, times, places, measures, and so forth suspected of involvement with the illegal collection of evidence; ‘materials’ refers to photos, physical examination records, hospital records, interrogation records, interrogation recordings, or testimony of others in the same cell that can reflect the harm of the illegal collection of evidence.”[3] These provisions place the burden of proof on defendants to prove their torture or ill-treatment, oftentimes by requiring that they rely on evidence that is not provided by authorities. The exclusionary rule is rarely enforced.
Violations of International Law
The systematic use of incommunicado detention as a method of short-term enforced disappearance during the deprivation of liberty of human rights defenders and prisoners of conscience is a violation of China’s obligations under international human rights law.
Although China is not a signatory to the Convention on Enforced Disappearances, the UN Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances was adopted by consensus by the UN General Assembly and is considered customary international law.
China is a signatory to the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, and a State Party to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhumane or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.
Under these treaties, Chinese authorities have an obligation to prevent arbitrary arrests or detention and ensure the right to a fair trial. It is their responsibility to ensure the right to be free from torture, and to investigate allegations of torture and provide remedy to victims. Chinese authorities must ensure that individuals have the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, and that they are secure in their rights to freedom of expression, association, health, and assembly.
[1] Of these, 165 were individuals held since 2019 but CHRD began collected data in 2019 and only adding cases retroactively when we discovered them.
[2] See, https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/857891?ln=en&=&v=pdf; https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMResultsBase/DownLoadPublicCommunicationFile?gId=23997; https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/upr/cn-index
[3] People’s Court Rules for Handling the Exclusion of Illegal Evidence in Criminal Cases (Provisional), 27 November 2017, https://web.archive.org/web/20220108005413/https://www.court.gov.cn/fabu-xiangqing-75652.html (unofficial translation: https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/en/peoples-court-rules-for-handling-the-exclusion-of-illegal-evidence-in-criminal-cases-provisional); Supreme People’s Court, Interpretation on the Application of the “Criminal Procedure Law of the PRC, 26 January 2021, https://web.archive.org/web/20250311213639/http://www.jcy.gansu.gov.cn/info/1116/32759.htm.
(unofficial translation: https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/en/spccplinterp2021/)