NYT,pg1: Issue in China: Many in Jails Without Trial

[DeepModem Mom]

Issue in China: Many in Jails Without Trial
By JIM YARDLEY
Published: May 9, 2005


ZIBO, China - For a Chinese government that regularly promises its citizens a society governed by the rule of law, the case of a neatly dressed man named Li is a reminder of what still remains outside the law.

Here in a bleak stretch of eastern China, Mr. Li, 40, spent two years in a prison called Shandong No. 2 Labor Re-education Camp. Mr. Li, who spoke on condition that only his surname be used, and other followers of the banned spiritual group Falun Gong have been jailed here despite never having a lawyer or a trial - rights granted under China's criminal law.

That is because Shandong No. 2 is part of a vast penal system in China that is separate from the judicial system. Falun Gong members are hardly the only inmates. Locked inside more than 300 special prisons are an estimated 300,000 prostitutes, drug users, petty criminals and other political prisoners who have been stripped of any legal rights.

In a nondemocratic country like China, such abuse of legal rights might not seem surprising. But this system, a relic of the Mao era, is presenting a dilemma for a modern Communist Party that faces pressure at home and abroad to change the system yet remains obsessed with security and political control.

The government this year is expected to begin privately considering whether, and how, to change the system....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/09/international/asia/09china.html?oref=login

[catnhatnh]

Many in jail without charges in China...

...and this differs from US how??? And why isn't ours front page news?

[bennywhale]

4. Contact Amnesty

and you can get a fuller picture of China's abuses.

They are horrific there are literally thousands and thousands languishing in jails without trial. The problem is we've lost our moral authority to criticise, which has been duly noticed by the Chinese when Condi tried to bring it up with them.

The Chinese Minister said "we are suffering from similar problems and human rights are a matter of degree"

[catnhatnh]

1. Dupe,sorry N/T

[Avalux]

2. China is NOT a democracy

and could care less about human rights. Of course, they can do as they wish - the mighty United States of America - certainly is in no place to make demands on China. How can we when they practically own us?

[sam sarrha]

3. Especially in Tibet about 1.25 Million have been Murdered in GENOCIDE.

A state sponsored GENOCIDE since 1959 has been covered up by the united states government. Forced labor death camps, starvation, destruction of habitat in winter.. destruction of their religion, depopulation and re-population of a country as big as all of western Europe, taken for its natural resources.

is that why China is a US Most Favored Nation.. Invasion, the theft of resources, murder, slavery and Extinction !! of religion unfavorable to the invading state based on peoples choice of religion.. {Buddhism in this case}.