{"id":34517,"date":"2013-06-22T21:27:00","date_gmt":"2013-06-22T21:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1:10081\/?p=34517 "},"modified":"2013-06-22T21:27:00","modified_gmt":"2013-06-22T21:27:00","slug":"34517-revision-v1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/?p=34517","title":{"rendered":"Calls For Transparency in China Labor Camp Reform"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>
2013-06-20      <\/div>
 <\/div>
\"2013621c0d9b648-ad00-403d-a674-a09ad18a068b.jpeg<\/div>
A file photo shows the Tuanhe re-education through labor camp near Beijing.<\/div>
 AFP<\/div>
 <\/div>
 <\/div>
 <\/div>
Chinese authorities are quietly reforming the country’s controversial “re-education through labor” system amid growing calls for public information on the process, activists said on Thursday.<\/div>
<\/div>
 <\/div>
The government is turning many of the existing facilities into drug rehabilitation units, the U.S.-based Duihua Foundation said in an article on its website this week.<\/div>
<\/div>
 <\/div>
“[Re-education through labor] RTL facilities in … Liaoning, Jiangsu, Jilin, and Hunan … have been quietly taking formal steps to transition into compulsory drug treatment centers,” the group quoted local media reports as saying.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
“All of those sent for non-drug-related offenses to one Liaoning RTL facility were released earlier this month—regardless of their time left to serve,” it quoted a petitioner released from the facility as saying.<\/div>
<\/div>
 <\/div>
Meanwhile, lawyers have said they have seen few RTL cases this year, although many said it was still unclear exactly what the reforms would mean.<\/div>
<\/div>
 <\/div>
Beijing-based rights lawyer Li Fangping said the authorities appeared to be carrying out the reforms under a veil of secrecy.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
“It’s still not clear whether this is a unified directive from the top, or what,” Li said on Thursday. “It is all happening in a murky way.”<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
“I have already made a public information request to the government, but they either refuse on the grounds that this is a state secret, or they don’t reply at all,” he said.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
“I haven’t been able to get any information at all on those four cities [where reforms are reported to be taking place],” he said.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
Jiangsu camps<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
The Guangzhou-based 21st Century Business Herald reported recently that the eastern province of Jiangsu had already turned all of its labor camp facilities into drug treatment centers.<\/div>
<\/div>
 <\/div>
But an employee at one Jiangsu facility told the paper that they would continue to accept inmates under the RTL system.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
“Officials in Jiangsu have warned about the need to prevent media speculation and manage public opinion in order to facilitate the process of reforming RTL,” the paper said.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
However, some facilities at least still appeared to be firmly in the hands of the police.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
An employee who answered the phone at the Jiangsu Women’s Re-education Through Labor facility referred all inquiries to the local public security bureau.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
“We only accept people sent to us by our local police department,” the employee said. “If they’re not sent by the police, we don’t take them.”<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
Quiet reforms<\/div>
<\/div>
 <\/div>
Zhejiang-based veteran journalist Zan Aizong said the reforms were likely taking place on the quiet in order to avoid calls for a blanket amnesty for RTL inmates.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
“If they announced that they were abolishing re-education through labor, then everyone currently serving time in a labor camp would probably demand to be released all at once,” Zan said.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
“And if they all started to sue the government after their release for compensation for unjust imprisonment, the volume of complaints would be huge,” he added.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
“These people should never have been sent to labor camp in the first place, so of course they are going to want to pursue whoever is responsible.”<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
The reports have sparked widespread speculation online, in spite of the government’s best efforts to avoid it, however.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
On China’s popular microblogging service Sina Weibo, user @Friend126 commented: “What are they afraid of?” while user @yaokuangyuntunmian added: “It shows that attitudes are changing, but they still aren’t brave enough to come out and admit they did something wrong.”<\/div>
<\/div>
 <\/div>
“Are they afraid of losing face? Actually, they would win over public opinion if they admitted this and then did something to change it.”<\/div>
<\/div>
 <\/div>
‘Chain reaction’<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
Meanwhile, a commentary in Xi’an’s China Business View said secrecy would be the worst kind of failure for the authorities in carrying out these reforms.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
“This means they lack confidence, and that they fear the media will make links to areas which aren’t going to be reformed,” the paper said on Tuesday.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
“This could prompt a chain reaction and result in previously unthinkable outcomes,” it said. “The deeper problem is that they aren’t responsible to public opinion, and there is a lack of effective dialogue between those in power and the people.”<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
The writer, Han Fudong, described the labor camp system as “a rat scurrying in the street, with everyone shouting ‘Kill it!’.”<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
“It is … illegal, disproportionate, and can be abused in the interests of stability maintenance,” Han wrote.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
“[These flaws] have already been given a full airing by public opinion and highlighted its true nature as an over-weening use of power.”<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
Rehabilitation centers<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
China has vowed to reform its controversial “re-education through labor” system of administrative punishments in 2013 following a prolonged campaign by lawyers, former inmates, and rights activists to abolish it.<\/div>
<\/div>
 <\/div>
Lawyers argue that the system has no basis in China’s current law, is a holdover from the political turmoil and kangaroo courts of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), and is a long-running violation of the rights of citizens.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
Some 160,000 Chinese people are held without trial in 350 labor camp-style facilities at any given time, government figures show.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
But rights groups have warned that the government could slightly modify the current system, but call it something different.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
Turning RTL facilities into drug rehabilitation centers may have little impact on the income police departments gain from the camps, nor on the abuses suffered by their inmates.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
China’s government-run drug rehabilitation centers have also been widely criticized.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
In 2011, drug addicts in the southwestern province of Yunnan described a litany of abuses including forced labor, beatings, and neglect at rehabilitation clinics in the region.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
Reported by Yang Fan for RFA’s Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.<\/div>
 <\/div>
 <\/div>
 <\/div>
 <\/div>Continue reading <\/span><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>the<\/span><\/a> <\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>original article<\/a><\/a><\/a>.<\/a><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/a><\/span> <\/a><\/span><\/strong>
 <\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<div>Meanwhile, lawyers have said they have seen few RTL cases this year, although many said it was still unclear exactly what the reforms would mean. Beijing-based rights lawyer Li Fangping said the authorities appeared to be carrying out the reforms under a veil of secrecy.<\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ChinaHumanRights","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34517\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}