The comments by Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang were China's first on the report Friday by Manfred Nowak at the end of a two-week trip to China.

Nowak, the U.N.'s first torture investigator to visit China, said inmates in detention centers in Beijing, Tibet and the Muslim-majority region of Xinjiang told him stories of beatings, electric shocks and sleep deprivation. One man said he was forced to lie in the same position for 85 days.

But Qin responded Tuesday that "China cannot accept the allegation that torture is widespread."

"We understand that the rapporteur's work is to find out problems and to give criticism, but within a short two weeks and a trip to only three cities, the rapporteur may jump to conclusions," the spokesman said at a regular briefing.

He added: "This is short on factual grounds and does not conform to reality."

Qin said monitoring and punishment systems have been set up to prevent torture, which was officially outlawed in China in 1996. "We have made effective efforts in this regard," he said.

Nowak will include his findings in a report to be submitted at next year's meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Commission.

China hopes Nowak "can correct the wrong conclusion in his report," Qin said.

Also Tuesday, the top U.S. diplomat in China accused Beijing of restricting Chinese advocacy groups and urged the country to improve its human rights record.

"Human right abuses in China are still all too common," U.S. Ambassador to China Clark T. Randt told U.S. business executives in Hong Kong. He cited examples of China's detention of journalists, pastors and academics on a range of charges from subversion and espionage to leaking of state secrets.

China has defended itself by saying it has worked hard to ensure basic human rights by reforming its economy, which has improved the overall standard of living of its people.

Nowak's visit, which began Nov. 21, capped a decade-long effort by the U.N. to send an investigator to look into claims of torture and mistreatment by Chinese authorities. Beijing had repeatedly agreed to allow the visits and then postponed them.

The United Nations said it received allegations that Chinese authorities have submerged prisoners in sewage, burned them with cigarettes, hooded or blindfolded them, exposed them to extreme heat or cold, or used handcuffs or ankle fetters for extended periods of time.

According to Nowak, certain groups have been particular targets of torture, including political dissidents, human rights activists, practitioners of Falun Gong, unofficial church groups and the Tibetan and Uighur minorities.

He Depu, one of the 30 people Nowak talked to in detention, said he was forced to lie still on a bed in a cold room for 85 days. The Beijing-based dissident said the position was like "killing a person with a soft knife."

Nowak, a Vienna law professor, said Chinese security agents tried at various times during his visit to obstruct or restrict his fact-finding. They listened in on interviews with victims' relatives or prevented family members from talking to him, he said.

Qin denied that any of it had happened. "The general principle of the visit was fully respected."

Source: MercuryNews

In appreciation of the importance of the recent visit to China of UN’s Special Rapporteur on Torture, UNPO sent a communication to Dr. Manfred Nowak on 07 December 2005. For more information, please follow below link.

http://www.unpo.org/news_detail.php?arg=01&par=3305