New | Freed Mongol dissident Hada says he was tortured in jail, remains under house arrest

A dissident who had been one of China’s longest-serving political prisoners until his release last week was tortured while in detention and has been threatened since he was let out, he said in a statement released on Monday.

The ethnic Mongol activist, Hada, has spent much of the last two decades behind bars, including the last four years in an extrajudicial “black jail”, but was released last week.

The government fears ethnic unrest in border areas and keeps a tight rein on Inner Mongolia, just as it does on Tibet and Xinjiang in the west, even though the region is supposed to have a large measure of autonomy.

“During these 19 years, in an effort to force me to abandon my beliefs, I was cruelly mistreated and subjected to various forms of tortures and ploys,” Hada said in a Mongol-language video statement, released by the New York-based Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Centre.

“In particular, my wife and son have been subjected to false accusations, enormous persecution and suffering. I myself have been disabled as a result of torture and brutality,” Hada said, according to a translation provided by the group.

Calls to the Inner Mongolia government seeking comment went unanswered. The use of torture is banned in China, but rights groups say it remains widespread.

Hada’s wife, Xinna, and their son, Uiles, have been in and out of detention over the past few years. They could not be contacted by phone. Many Mongols in China go by just one name.