When officials from a township birth control office got a hold of Zhou Jiang-xiong in May 1998, they hung him upside down, repeatedly whipped and beat him with wooden clubs, burned him with cigarette butts, branded him with soldering irons, and ripped his genitals off. This is not an isolated incident, each year many people are tortured to death in China. Victims of torture can be anyone from criminal suspects, political dissidents, workers and innocent bystanders to officials. In 2000, Shenzen media exposed a series of cases where security officials working in local businesses had beaten, tortured and even killed customers who complained about prices or were suspected of theft. Many women have been tortured, including being raped and sexually abused, by police who accuse them of prostitution.
Police choose to detain and torture women in order to extract lists of alleged clients to blackmail.
Many alleged prostitutes and clients have died under torture. A woman who arrived on business in Guangzhou in July 1999, had her luggage stolen and was arrested by police who believed she was a mentally-ill vagrant. Although she later identified 8-9 suspects and filed several complaints and appeals for compensation, investigations stalled until the case was reported in the media. The torture of political dissidents remains commonplace. In the XUAR and Tibet, few political prisoners escape torture.