Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location (RSDL, Chinese: 指定居所监视居住) is a form of detention regularly used by authorities in the People's Republic of China against individuals accused of endangering state security.
[1] RSDL is usually carried out at special facilities run by the Public or State Security Bureaus of China, often euphemistically called "training centers," or even hotels that have been converted into black jails.
[2] Laws regulating RSDL contain exceptions that allow the state to not inform the family members of the detained about their loved one's incarceration, while also denying detainees access to a lawyer.
[14] These abuses were severe enough to warrant a ruling from the Supreme People's Court in 1984, that admonished the public security apparatus for improperly enforcing residential surveillance outside the domicile of the suspect.
[16] The revision to the law notably obliged the person under surveillance to remain in their home until given permission to leave and decreed that those without a "fixed domicile" could be confined to a "designated residence.
The 2012 Criminal Procedure Law allowed for the application of RSDL, when the suspect lacked a "fixed domicile," or was accused of either endangering state security or engaging in serious bribery.
[24] Well known victims have included artist Ai Weiwei, Nobel Peace Prize-winning poet Liu Xiaobo, Swedish bookseller Gui Minhai, and women's tennis star Peng Shuai.