“I wanted to let people know how the police would use torture in interrogations,” he said by telephone on Monday. The abuses included pouring liquid down his nose and forcing him to go without sleep, he said.

He said the officers who tortured him were from the Zhongyang County Public Security Bureau. A woman who answered the phone at the bureau on Monday afternoon said she did not know about the case and declined to comment.

Image Liu Renwang said he was hung up for 24 hours "and given electric shocks." Credit... Courtesy of Liu Renwang

Mr. Liu said that he had asked several painters in Zhongyang to illustrate his experiences but that they all turned him down for fear of retaliation by the police. Eventually a painter in Hunan Province agreed to draw the pictures for him.

“He expressed sympathy regarding my experience and said he could do it,” Mr. Liu said. He said the painter drew six cartoons for him and charged him 100 renminbi, or about $16.

The Paper published the drawings at a time when the Chinese courts are increasingly focusing on wrongful convictions, particularly in death penalty cases, and trying to reduce errors and avoid the potential social unrest that could be set off by the executions of innocent people.