In May, 1998, Chinese family planning officials knocked on the door of a 30-year-old farmer, Mr Zhou Jiang Xiong. They suspected his wife was pregnant without permission and they wanted to know where she was.
Refusing to reveal her whereabouts, Mr Zhou was taken into detention, where he was hung upside down, repeatedly whipped and beaten, branded with soldering irons, and had his genitals ripped off. He died from his injuries two weeks later.
This horrific case was listed by Amnesty International in its latest country report on China published on Tuesday. It describes it as one of many cases brought to its attention of violation of human rights in relation to China's notorious "one child" policy.
No policy in modern Chinese times has been as controversial as the Communist party's 1980 directive limiting most families to a single child. The move was aimed at controlling the spiralling population and attracted strong criticism from all over the world.
In many areas before conceiving, a woman had to apply for a "birth permit" from the local branch of the State Family Planning Commission.
According to official estimates, without the one child policy China would have added another 330 million people to its population, currently at 1.2 billion. Based on current trends, demographers now project that China's population will start dropping around 2040. About two thirds of all Chinese live in the countryside and the single child policy strikes at the root of rural life in China: the birth of sons to carry on the family name.
China never had a national one child policy law as such, with local governments given huge latitude in its implementation.
The Communist Party's order in 1980 simply urged party members to "encourage" families to have one child. Beijing set birth targets for provinces and counties, but left the implementation up to local officials who often abused their power by carrying out directives with brute force.
Two decades into China's one child policy, there are some signs of a relaxation of the law. The government is quietly encouraging pilot projects to replace coercion with choice in matters such as when to give birth and what type of contraceptives to use.