MCLC: petition seeks closure of detention centers

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: petition seeks closure of detention centers
***********************************************************

Source: Sinosphere blog, NYT
(5/5/14):http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/05/petition-seeks-clos
ure-of-extrajudicial-detention-centers/

Petition Seeks Closure of Extrajudicial Detention Centers
By DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW

More than 100 lawyers, scholars, retired officials and Communist Party
members have signed a letter calling for the abolition of “custody and
education 
<http://www.duihuaresearch.org/2013/12/custody-and-education-worse-than.htm
l>,” a form of punishment meted out by the Public Security Bureau that
bypasses the legal system and can jail people for up to two years. The
signatories say the two-decades-old system contravenes China’s
constitution and laws, violates citizens’ rights and is out of step with
the state’s “law-building spirit.”

The letter, signed by 109 people, was delivered to the National People’s
Congress Monday afternoon, said Liu Jianshu, a spokesman for the
signatories who works at a nongovernmental organization specializing in
legal issues, in a telephone interview. Copies of the letter circulated
over the weekend.

Custody and education is principally aimed at punishing sex workers and
their clients by “re-educating” them for six months to two years, obliging
them to perform manual labor and to undergo sexual health checkups,
according to rules first drawn up in 1991 and formalized in State Council
regulations signed in 1993 by the prime minister at the time, Li Peng. But
Mr. Liu said it has also been applied more broadly to rights activists.

Critics in and outside China say the system is filled with abuses, such as
long days of often unpaid labor, beatings, forcing detainees to get
permission to use the toilet and to buy products from special shops at
three to fives times the normal price. Inmates are often subjected to
humiliation, they say, and most prostitutes return to their former work
after they are released. Children’s rights advocates object that the
regulations permit incarcerating girls as young as 14.

Signatories include Guo Daohui
<http://english.caixin.com/2012-05-28/100394680.html>, 86, a legal scholar
and former senior researcher at the National People’s Congress’s legal
affairs work committee; Du Guang
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/chinese-communist-party-f
rets-over-a-new-threat-a-book-by-an-aged-communist/2012/03/06/gIQAm8iXyR_st
ory.html?wpisrc=emailtoafriend>, a former librarian at the Central Party
School; Cao Haiqing, of the Central Institute for Correctional Police; Li
Yinhe, a member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and a prominent
sexual and gender rights activist, as well as lawyers from private firms,
academics, and women’s and children’s rights specialists. A prominent
businesswoman, Wang Ying
<http://news.yahoo.com/long-silent-chinas-entrepreneurs-push-change-1047526
27--finance.html>, also signed.

Mr. Liu cited three recent examples of rights advocates incarcerated under
the system: Xian Yaojun, in the southern province of Guangdong; He Yurong,
in Shaoyang in the central province of Hunan; and Xue Jinying in Baotou,
Inner Mongolia.

“Custody and education is not just a violation of the rights of those
selling sex and their clients, but is a threat to the freedom and safety
of all citizens,” Mr. Liu said, in a statement released to the news media.

In the interview, Mr. Liu said that the signatories, who are running some
risk by publicly criticizing a system still approved by the state, hoped
to hear back from the National People’s Congress, but were tempering their
expectations. “Most letters like this don’t get an answer,” he said.

The letter praised the government for abolishing late last year  the
“re-education through labor” system, which over the decades had
incarcerated millions of people for up to three years without going
through the legal system. But the signatories said that other
extrajudicial systems that violated citizens’ rights also needed to be
abolished. “This is also extralegal, so it’s the same,” said Mr. Liu.

The letter called on the government to show “the same wisdom and courage”
by abolishing the custody and education system.

Foreign and Chinese rights advocates have warned that programs such as
custody and education may serve as a substitute for the abolished
re-education through labor.

It is unclear how many custody-and-education centers exist in China now
and how many people they hold, but Zhao Sile, a women’s rights advocate
and one of the signatories, tried to find out, according to the media
statement. On April 4, she filed 320 freedom of information requests to
local governments and public security bureaus around the country.
Additional requests for information included the criteria for deciding the
length of custody and how much inmates were paid for their labor.

By April 30, after the 15-day time limit for responding to such requests,
not a single public security bureau had replied in writing to Ms. Zhao,
while most replies from government offices referred her to the public
security bureaus.

The only “substantial” response came from the government of the
southwestern metropolis of Chongqing, which said it operated only one such
center. The number of inmates was not public information, it said, but the
center did not run any “production projects” or “paid projects.” It added
that the “existence, abolition and amendment” of the system were issues
currently being researched and discussed by the authorities.

In 2002, there were 200 such centers nationwide, with about 28,000
inmates, the signatories’ statement said. Between 1987 and 2000, more than
300,000 people were in custody and education. The statement did not
explain the circumstances under which they were detained before the system
was formally established.