Liuzhi: Use of Party’s secret detention system soars
New data released by the Chinese Communist Party's internal policing body shows a major 46.15% increase in the use of the Liuzhi system from 2023 to 2024. Over the course of last year, 38,000 people were detained by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI).
Further below are a number of new data points as presented in the CCDI’s annual work report.
Liuzhi, or retention in custody, is very similar in design to the better-known residential surveillance at a designated location system (RSDL), which is traditionally used against lawyers, rights defenders and dissidents.
Both systems consist of incommunicado detentions in solitary confinement at secret locations for a period of up to six months.
Unlike RSDL however, the Liuzhi system resides entirely outside the legal system and is treated as an internal party matter (even though many of its victims are likely not party members). In Liuzhi, one does not even theoretically have a right to legal counsel.
For more information on CCDI, Liuzhi and related issues, see our recent (16 Dec 2024) longer story on this.
Key findings from the CCDI’s latest annual work report on the use of Liuzhi are:
The number of investigations of “discipline violations” rose from 626,000 in 2023 to 877,000 in 2024, an increase of 40.09%.
The number of people placed into Liuzhi rose from 26,000 in 2023 to 38,000 in 2024, an increase of 46.15%.
Based on the above, the use of Liuzhi, the harshest form of investigation, rose not only in total number of instances used, but also relative to all investigations:
4.15% of those investigated placed into Liuzhi 2023.
4.33% of those investigated placed into Liuzhi 2024.
Of the 889,000 people given disciplinary sanctions of any sort, 17,000 regarded people in the financial sector, 94,000 within State-Owned Enterprises, and 60,000 people within the pharmaceutical sector.
The total number of victims since the system was implemented in 2018 is now likely close to - or slightly above - 200,000. All are victims of the CCDI’s systematic and widespread use of arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances and torture (due to the prolonged use of solitary confinement).
For more information on the expansion of Party and CCDI control over State and public organs, and the rapidly expanding use of the Liuzhi system, and how it relates to the National Commission for Supervision (NCS), see our recent investigation here, or the fuller submission made to the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances
