Behind Cry for Help From China Labor Camp
Source: New York Times
Scrawling in wobbly English on a sheet of onionskin paper, the writer said he was imprisoned at a labor camp in this northeastern Chinese town, where he said inmates toiled seven days a week, their 15-hour days haunted by sadistic guards.
The letter drew international news media coverage and widespread attention to Chinas opaque system of re-education through labor, a collection of penal colonies where petty criminals, religious offenders and critics of the government can be given up to four-year sentences by the police without trial.
Sometimes the guards would drag me around by my hair or apply electric batons to my skin for so long, the smell of burning flesh would fill the room, said Chen Shenchun, 55, who was given a two-year sentence for refusing to give up a petition campaign aimed at recovering unpaid wages from her accounting job at a state-owned factory.
According to former inmates, roughly half of Masanjias population is made up of Falun Gong practitioners or members of underground churches, with the rest a smattering of prostitutes, drug addicts and petitioners whose efforts to seek redress for perceived injustices had become an embarrassment for their hometown officials.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/12/world/asia/man-details-risks-in-exposing-chinas-forced-labor.html?pagewanted=all
MADem
(135,425 posts)play from his dreamland-Iceland?
"Forced labor" or "re-education" ain't technically "prison." It's just like summer camp, only longer, with arduous conditions....and ya can't leave.
Yay, China--they will 'save' him!!! What a charming display of freedoms in that letter! What's not to love?
I'll add one of these for the irony-impaired:
freshwest
(53,661 posts)fasttense
(17,301 posts)than they do.
MADem
(135,425 posts)They'd probably be overrun with prisoners if:
1. They counted the people in the forced labor and re-education camps and called them what they are, prisoners;
2. They didn't kill them by the thousands each year.
catnhatnh
(8,976 posts)....but I DO notice they have a fixed term to serve unlike detainees at Guantanamo-be careful what you call the Kettle, Mr. Pot.
cheapdate
(3,811 posts)awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)and know that China is not a shining city on the hill.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)quakerboy
(13,923 posts)In what respect? China is an Authoritarian Capitalist paradise. What part of that would a leftist be drawn to? Please be specific.
David__77
(23,566 posts)I think that China's economic development and social stability is progressive force on the world stage. It helps maintain peace and development throughout Asia. China's foreign trade policy is definitely more progressive than the World Bank/IMF regime, acting as a counterpoint in Africa and Latin America.
At home, the Chinese government is a secular entity with a decent record on women's rights, including abortion rights. Gay people are gaining greater acceptance (still a long way to go). Economic policy is akin to FDR's New Deal, focusing massive resources on works projects in the poorer interior regions.
China's economic growth is real, and is transforming the lives of hundreds of millions. A needed shift away from export-oriented growth is occurring, allowing wages to rise an the workforce becomes more skilled and oriented toward technology-intensive production.
Falun Gong is a hateful anti-gay cult that is completely right-wing and backward. I do not sympathize with it at all.
cheapdate
(3,811 posts)from our local university. One of them works at a bank now, the other one I met through his community activism. He's working odd jobs and going to graduate school. They are both committed Marxists. They take positions all the time that are awfully hard to swallow unless you're in their mindset.
quakerboy
(13,923 posts)What exactly would a Marxist find admirable about Capitalist Authoritarian China?
Response to cheapdate (Reply #2)
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Left Coast2020
(2,397 posts)I believe thats the translation for prison camp.
ReRe
(10,597 posts)One wonders if the USA and China are going to change places one of these days.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)Whether that's good or bad, I don't know. I have a lot of Chinese neighbors of all ages and I find them great people. Some have just come to retire, others run businesses. They are not changing their culture to live here, just locations.
Hubert Flottz
(37,726 posts)His working conditions are what the GOP has in mind for Americans.
duhneece
(4,119 posts)And they were vilified. Child labor, prison labor...and yet we still buy their products. Damn that says alot about us...and none of it good.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)Not to long ago people from china were in a lot of the online communities. China cut them off and that was that
I guess if you're a Gov leader there or a city/town leader- you can do what you want. Any lower class or a person without leadership lines and contacts..your life is in their hands.
Response to Bonobo (Original post)
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