With the public screaming "torture," Chinese police are now required to film interrogations. (Photo : Reuters)
Police are now required to capture every interrogation on video. This is to ensure that suspects' rights are not being neglected.
The Ministry of Public Security approved the requirement, along with instructions to improve police accountability and evidence gathering. The ministry is calling for a change toward the police's way of handling cases to prevent them from torturing innocent civilians into confessions.
The ministry put these policies into effect because Chinese citizens are already clamoring over injustice and wrongful punishments.
Last year, the parents of a teenager wrongfully executed 18 years ago for rape and murder were compensated when the Inner Mongolia Court reversed his conviction. The real killer was finally sentenced to death. The parents of the slain innocent teenager can now be at peace that their son's wrongful death has been put right. However, it still took 18 years before this injustice was righted and the innocent boy's name cleared.
In another case, an innocent food vendor in death row was acquitted. The supposed "killer" confessed that he was tortured to confess.
Public clamoring for torture injustices is not all smoke, as the police still insist.
Numerous accounts of bribery among police officers are apparently getting into the ministry's nerves. A ministry official who would only allow an interview if his name is never mentioned, for fear of retaliation by the police, admitted that several problems, cases of torture, mishandling of evidence, still occur in the police precincts.
The official said: "Law enforcement is not strict, not standardized, not just. The trading of power for money and bending the law for personal gain seriously undermines police credibility."
