MCLC: 'black jail' verdict

Denton, Kirk denton.2 at osu.edu
Mon Dec 3 08:58:32 EST 2012


MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: 'black jail' verdict
***********************************************************

Source: NYT (12/2/12):
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/03/world/asia/chinese-media-retreat-after-re
ports-of-unexpected-black-jail-verdict.html

Chinese Media Retreat After Reports of Unexpected ŒBlack Jail¹ Verdict
By ANDREW JACOBS

BEIJING ‹ A brief news article published on Sunday by a score of state-run
news media outlets offered an account of an unexpected judicial verdict: a
Beijing municipal court had sentenced 10 people to jail for illegally
detaining and assaulting a group of citizens who had come to the capital
to lodge complaints about official malfeasance in their hometown in China
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/c
hina/index.html?inline=nyt-geo>¹s central Henan Province.

The defendants had flashed government identification cards when they
rounded up the 12 petitioners and bundled them off to a secret ³black jail
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/world/asia/09jails.html>² on the
outskirts of the capital, according to The Beijing Youth Daily, the first
paper to publish the news.

Legal rights advocates hailed the landmark court decision, said to be the
first of its kind in any such case in the capital, as did many users of
Sina Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter. ³Great news,² wrote one.
³This is the start of rule of law.²

But apparently the news was too politically discomfiting to survive. By
the end of the day, the article had been deleted from most Web sites, and
a court employee insisted that news accounts of the verdict were false.
The Beijing Youth Daily, the court employee said, had agreed to publish an
apology.

No apology had appeared on the newspaper¹s Web site by late Sunday.

At first glance, the episode appeared to highlight imperfections in the
Communist Party¹s well-oiled propaganda machine: if the news was indeed
untrue, why did tightly controlled media outlets, including People¹s Daily
and the Xinhua news agency, publish it? (The censors were not terribly
effective: as of early Monday, a handful of Chinese Web sites
<http://www.cq.xinhuanet.com/2012-12/02/c_113875250.htm> and news portals
still featured the news.)

But it also underscored official ambivalence over an extralegal form of
detention that has drawn criticism from rights activists and outraged many
Chinese. In recent years, top officials have repeatedly denied the
existence of black jails, which are financed by local governments
desperate to prevent aggrieved citizens from filing complaints against
abusive police officers or corrupt local leaders in China¹s hinterland.

Even if the vast majority of petitions are unsuccessful ‹ one study
suggested fewer than 1 percent received an official response ‹ local
Communist Party bureaucrats have come to believe that the complaints, if
successfully lodged in Beijing, can harm their career prospects.

To stop people from reaching the capital¹s main petition office, the State
Bureau for Letters and Visits
<http://english.gov.cn/2005-10/02/content_74182.htm>, municipal and
provincial governments pay ³retrievers² to grab petitioners off the street
and bundle them off to cheap hotel rooms or rented basements. Some are
held for weeks under dismal conditions until officials can send them back
to their hometowns. Stories of beatings, rape and sometimes even death in
custody are legion.

Official denials of the existence of black jails were challenged in 2010
after two Chinese publications
<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/28/world/asia/28china.html> ran exposés
about a Beijing security company that was paid millions of dollars by
local governments to capture and expel petitioners from the capital.
Although the articles were later removed from the publications¹ Web sites,
the Beijing police reportedly detained two of the company¹s executives and
promised an investigation.

Last year, China Daily and The Beijing News wrote about a black jail where
dozens of people spent months packed into three small rooms.

Legal experts say the ad hoc detention system continues to flourish.
According to the account published on Sunday by The Beijing Youth Daily,
the Chaoyang District Court in late November convicted 10 men of ³illegal
imprisonment² and handed down sentences ranging from several months to a
year and a half. The article said officers from the Beijing Municipal
Public Security Bureau <http://www.bjgaj.gov.cn/eng/> had helped round up
the retrievers in early May.

³Insiders suggest the case has evident positive significance because it
says Œno¹ to local governments that want only to restrict people¹s
personal freedom in the name of stopping petitioners,² the article said.
³The case will also serve as a warning to Beijing¹s black jails.²

Judging from many of the thousands of comments posted online
<http://tie.bbs.cn.yahoo.com/list.html?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.cn.yahoo.com%2
Fypen%2F20121202%2F1464197.html&title=%E5%8C%97%E4%BA%AC%E9%A6%96%E6%AC%A1%
E5%88%A4%E5%86%B3%E5%A4%96%E5%9C%B0%E6%88%AA%E8%AE%BF%E4%BA%BA%E5%91%98%E9%
9D%9E%E6%B3%95%E6%8B%98%E7%A6%81%E7%BD%AA&category=news&target=ycms_article
_1464197&product_type=1&time=1354396380>, few believed the official
retraction. ³The news was on People¹s Daily Web site,² said one. ³Is
People¹s Daily a rumor mill?²

Another said, ³The news might be false, but people¹s voice is real.²

Mia Li contributed research.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: December 2, 2012

A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that officers from
the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau had helped round up
petitioners. They helped round up the ³retrievers² who had grabbed
petitioners off the street.









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