China will take effective measures to ensure detainees' rights and humanitarian treatment, said the National Human Rights Action Plan of China (2009-2010) released Monday by the Information Office of China's State Council.

Effective measures shall be taken to prohibit such acts as corporal punishment, abuse, insult of detainees or the extraction of confessions by torture, the plan said.

All interrogation rooms must impose a physical separation between detainees and interrogators. The state establishes and promotes the system of conducting a physical examination of detainees before and after an interrogation, according to the plan.

It said the state will make efforts to improve the laws, regulations, policies and measures related to the protection of detainees' rights and humanitarian treatment.

According to the plan, China is establishing a supervisory system and a power-restraint mechanism for law enforcement, and intensifying investigation into illegal activities committed during law enforcement and punishing those who are held accountable.

The state is intensifying real-time supervision conducted by the people's procuratorate on law enforcement in prisons and detention houses, it said.

For detainees' convenience, complaint letter boxes are set up in their cells, and a detainee may meet the procurator stationed in a prison or detention house by appointment, if the former feels he has been abused and wants to make a complaint, the plan said.

(Xinhua News Agency April 13, 2009)