China Focus: Lawmakers call for labor camp reform (2)

By Xinhua writers Mou Xu, Han Miao (Xinhua)

18:12, March 03, 2013

An NPC deputy and legal expert from Fujian Province, Dai Zhongchuan said, "To some degree, the labor camp system makes people live in fear. It's an unchecked and unsupervised measure that can deprive and limit people's freedom outside court, making it extremely liable to be abused by power."

Calls for the system's reform have been running high for years. Several recent high-profile cases involving misuse of labor camp education have put it eve more under the spotlight.

In one case, Tang Hui, a woman in central China's Hunan Province, was sentenced to internment in a labor camp in August after demanding tougher penalties for the seven men convicted of abducting, raping and prostituting her 11-year-old daughter. She was released within a week following complaints from the public and academics rocked the nation.

In another case, Ren Jianyu, 25, was arrested in 2011 for forwarding and commenting on more than 100 pieces of "negative information" online. A month after his arrest, he was given a two-year term in a labor camp for "incitement to subvert state power" without a court process. Ren was released in November last year after serving over half of his sentence.

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