Nearly a quarter century has passed since you were forced into hiding by the Ayatollah’s fatwa. In the ensuing years, how would you assess the worldwide climate for censorship? Have things generally gotten better, or worse?

I’d say that, in general, they’ve gotten worse. But one of the things our report highlights is that people have more tools to resist censorship using new media. For instance, in China,  while there’s increased repression in the form of arbitrary arrests, artists held incommunicado and put under house arrest, and increasing hostility towards literature and free expression, there is at the same time a growing willingness of Chinese citizens to find ways to express themselves. In spite of all the repression, there’s been a  growth of independent, non-state publishers to print things that wouldn’t be approved by state houses, and people have shown the willingness to post things online even if they’re not to the liking of the state.

Is this a battle that China’s citizens will win?

I don’t want to be Pollyannish — it’s entirely possible that they’ll lose. China has been pretty effective over the years in silencing dissident voices — just consider the case of Liu Xiaobao and his wife, who resorted to shouting “not free” in court to remind people of her situation. The Chinese are good at repression and can be pretty ruthless about it.

But I feel that, in the end, China does want to have a more significant role in international affairs, it does want to be seen as a big player in the world, it wants to have authority, it wants to have respect, it wants to be treated as one of the great voices in the world today. They’re beginning to be aware that their behavior is damaging their reputation, though, and I think if you put sufficient pressure on authoritarian regimes they often see that it is in their own self-interest to ease up on repression.

This is not the first time Rushdie has weighed in on China: he has publicly advocated on behalf of political prisoner Liu Xiaobo, has co-authored a letter to Hu Jintao and foreign minister Yang Jiechi protesting travel restrictions on dissident artist Ai Weiwei, has opined that “art will win over tyrants” in reference to China, and has also labeled Mo Yan a “patsy” after the Chinese novelist took the Nobel prize in literature. Also see Rushdie’s recollection of the day in 1989 when he became aware of the Ayatollah’s call to end his life, via The New Yorker.

The Atlantic has also published an excerpt from author Murong Xuecun’s contribution to the PEN report, on “China’s ‘Crappy Freedom’”:

In the past decade or so, the condition of freedom of speech in China has improved remarkably. But if any credit is due the government, it’s due to its powerlessness.

[…] On April 22, 2011, a Chongqing netizen named Fang Hong passed a joke online: When Bo Xilai asked Wang Lijun to eat his shit, Wang Lijun asked the procurator to eat it, who then asked Li Zhuang to eat it. Li Zhuang said: whoever shit it should eat it.

Two days later, Fang Hong was arrested by the Chongqing police and was sentenced to one year of re-education through labor.

Bo Xilai has left Chongqing […]. But the “pile of shit” case has universal significance and symbolism. It’s like the moral of a typical Chinese fable: You have the freedom to take a shit, and you have the freedom to eat it. But you don’t have the freedom to casually comment on it.

Global Times reported last month that Fang, who was cleared of wrongdoing and released in April last year, recently lost a court bid for higher compensation than the nearly 57,000 yuan (about $9,000) he was initially offered. Other high-profile re-education through labor inmates have recently been denied compensation altogether, including Ren Jianyu, also in Chongqing, and “petitioning mother” Tang Hui.

Samuel Wade contributed to this post.

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Post tags: anti-censorship, Bo Xilai, censorship, Chongqing, freedom of expression, Murong Xuecun, novelists, re-education through labor, writers
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Tang said she went to search for her daughter herself after police efforts failed. Nearly three months later, she spotted the underground brothel where her daughter was held. But when she called one district police officer, he declined to help. Tang eventually called the emergency number 110 several times, and police responders helped her save her daughter. When she asked that the kidnappers be arrested, the local police office did not immediately file the case or conduct further investigations.

That is how Tang began a long process of petitioning for justice, first at the provincial level, then in Beijing. Slowly, local authorities started to act. In June last year, her daughter’s two main kidnappers were sentenced to death, four accomplices received life sentences and one was jailed for 15 years.

But Tang wants more.

[…] The determined Tang continues to campaign for death sentences for the other five kidnappers despite her spell in a labour camp. Tang was sentenced to 18 months of re-education at the Zhuzhou Baimalong labour camp, about two hours by bus north of her hometown. The reason given was that her protests “seriously disturbed the social order and exerted a negative impact on society”, Xinhua reported.

Tang’s case has become a symbol of growing opposition to reeducation through labor, but law professor Wang Lin argued at Oriental Morning News earlier this month that abolishing the system would not dig out the underlying problem. From a translation at Dui Hua Foundation’s Human Rights Journal:

With the Tang Hui and Zhao Meifu [another "petitioning mother"] cases as points of departure, attention to the reform or even abolition of the RTL system is a natural public reaction. But hidden in the background of these two cases is not simply a debate over the legality of the RTL system, but [a need to] rethink the relationship between petitioning and the judicial system. Why were the “petitioning mothers” sent to RTL? Because of their “petitioning.” Why did they “trust the petitioning system rather than the judicial system”? Because they believed that they had already exhausted all channels for a judicial remedy and felt that they were unable to defend their rights effectively. So, they tied their hopes to the petitioner’s path.

[…] Resolving this difficult situation rests on rebuilding the relationship between the judiciary and petitioning and making it ordinary for parties’ lawful rights and interests to be protected within legal channels. It is essential to let judicial independence pave the way for judicial fairness. Only by protecting citizens’ lawful rights and interests can we ensure the stability of localities and rights; this is an undisputable truth.

The Dui Hua Foundation also highlights a near mirror-image of Tang Hui’s case, in which parents’ petitioning seems to have secured a death sentence for the man accused of their daughter’s rape and murder. This too reveals a serious dysfunction in the judicial process, according to Geng Shuang at Southern Metropolis Daily, translated at Dui Hua:

[…] No matter what explanation is given by the court involved, the answer is all too clear: this is a guarantee against petitioning demanded by the court of the victim’s relatives. What sort of mindset did the court have in demanding that the victim’s relatives make this kind of guarantee? Actually, the court is truly helpless, because if it doesn’t prevent victims’ families from petitioning, court officials will have a hard time keeping their jobs.

In this case, the court has been kidnapped—and, at a deeper level, that means the judicial system has been kidnapped—by the petitioning system. And once the judicial system has been kidnapped, the natural balance of the law inevitably becomes imbalanced. In this case, specifically, this sort of kidnapping resulted in two clear errors by the Pingdingshan intermediate court [….]

[…] In fact, more than two months after the relative signed the letter of guarantee, the Pingdingshan Intermediate People’s Court did, in fact, sentence the suspect to death. Considering that a higher court subsequently annulled the death sentence based on insufficient evidence, it is clear that the death sentence in this case was imposed without enough evidence and that the primary factor of consideration at the time of sentencing was not only “taking facts as the basis and the law as criterion” but, rather, preventing the victim’s relatives from further petitioning.

Geng notes that the accused has now been imprisoned for nearly 11 years despite the flimsiness of the case against him, and that “the moment he is acquitted, huge amounts of state compensation will be involved, and this case could become the ‘sequel to the Zhao Zuohai case.’” Zhao served 11 years in prison for the murder of a man later found alive, and said that he had been tortured into making a false confession. He received compensation of 650,000 yuan in 2010 (almost US$100,000).

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Statue of Lei Feng at the Masanjia Women’s Labor Re-education Camp.

The following censorship instructions, issued to the media by government authorities, have been leaked and distributed online.

Central Propaganda Department: Without exception, do not reuse, report, or comment on the article about the Masanjia Women’s Labor Re-education Camp and related contents. (April 9, 2013)

中宣部：对马三家女子劳教所的报道及相关内容，一律不转不报不评。

The mainland magazine Lens published an exposé on torture in the camp, located near the northeastern city of Shenyang. Many of the abuses which previous camp personnel and current and former inmates described match those alleged by Falun Gong practitioners years before. The central government has recently made waves about ending the system of re-education through labor (laojiao), under which many citizens are imprisoned without trial, often for simply speaking their mind.

Read the report on CDT Chinese [zh].

Correction: This post originally stated that the full Lens report was available online. The version of the report published on CDT Chinese, like most circulating online, is missing the section “Lawsuit” (诉讼). The full print version is available for purchase from Lens. Thank you to Joshua Rosenzweig for the tip.

Chinese journalists and bloggers often refer to these instructions as “Directives from the Ministry of Truth.” CDT has collected the selections we translate here from a variety of sources and has checked them against official Chinese media reports to confirm their implementation.

Since directives are sometimes communicated orally to journalists and editors, who then leak them online, the wording published here may not be exact. The original publication date on CDT Chinese is noted after the directives; the date given may indicate when the directive was leaked, rather than when it was issued. CDT does its utmost to verify dates and wording, but also takes precautions to protect the source.

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The new leadership has stressed it will make a priority of social spending and other measures to spread prosperity more evenly and narrow a politically volatile gap between China’s wealthy elite and poor majority, as well combat endemic corruption that has angered the public.

“In face of the mighty trend of the times and earnest expectations of the people for a better life, we cannot have the slightest complacency, or get the slightest slack at work,” Xi told the nearly 3,000 delegates at the congress’ closing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in the heart of Beijing.

“We must resolutely reject formalism, bureaucratism, hedonism and extravagance, and resolutely fight against corruption and other misconduct in all manifestations,” Xi said.

Xi, already the country’s overall leader since being named Communist Party general secretary in November, was installed as president during the 13-day session ending Sunday, and the party’s No. 2 leader, Li Keqiang, was named premier.

Premier Li Keqiang held a press conference Sunday, during which he was asked a number of pre-screened questions on a range of topics, including environmental degradation, reform of the re-education through labor system, and U.S.-China relations. Foreign journalists at the event live-tweeted his comments:

Li Keqiang has 3 rules for next 10 yrs. 1. No new govn’t buildings 2. Gov payroll will decrease 3. Entertainment budget will decrease.

— malcolmmoore (@MalcolmMoore) March 17, 2013

Li: no matter how deep the water, we must wade into it. There is no choice. The country’s future depends on it. #reform

— Damien Ma (@damienics) March 17, 2013

Li Keqiang laughs during response to @charleshutzler question: When will China stop hack attacks against the US?

— April Rabkin (@AprilRabkin) March 17, 2013

Li Keqiang breaks into full laughter while responding to hacking question

— April Rabkin (@AprilRabkin) March 17, 2013

Li on environment: it’s no good to be poor in a beautiful environment, nor any good to be well-off and live with environmental degradation

— Mark MacKinnon/马凯 (@markmackinnon) March 17, 2013

China Daily asks Li about time table on re-education through labor reform.

— Eric Fish (@ericfish85) March 17, 2013

Li: Plan on Re-education through labor reform may be unveiled by the end of the year.

— Eric Fish (@ericfish85) March 17, 2013

Journos around me chiding me for bothering to raise my hand. Allegation that I’m contributing to charade this is an actual press conference.

— Mark MacKinnon/马凯 (@markmackinnon) March 17, 2013

NYT has not been invited to Li Keqiang’s inaugural press conference Sunday. I was so looking forward to showing off my new red suede shoes!

— Andrew Jacobs (@AndrewJacobsNYT) March 16, 2013

Interesting – Li Keqiang says he knows many foreign journos didn’t get to ask a question…

— Mark MacKinnon/马凯 (@markmackinnon) March 17, 2013

Nobody asked a question that wasn’t pre-screened RT @ericfish85: Nobody asked how Li’s experience in Henan affected his view on AIDS policy.

— Mark MacKinnon/马凯 (@markmackinnon) March 17, 2013

This is literally true RT @malcolmmoore: Li Keqiang is now putting questions to himself on behalf of the foreign media.

— Tom Lasseter (@TomLasseter) March 17, 2013

Strikes me that Xi and Li were more philosophical this morning than usual, but still steadfastly dull.

— malcolmmoore (@MalcolmMoore) March 17, 2013

Well, show’s over. This was the reform and good governance speech. Li invoked rule of law and transparency more than I expected.

— Damien Ma (@damienics) March 17, 2013

South China Morning Post also posted live updates from the press conference.

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A big hurdle, legal experts say, is that authorities have grown dependent on labor camps as an expedient way to silence critics. Police can send people to the camps for up to four years with no judicial process. Citizens have been punished for crimes as trivial as writing an unflattering blog post about a local official. Some prisoners are there because of their religious practice or because they have tried to raise complaints about local injustices to central authorities.

The camps provide what is essentially free labor to state ventures. But critics say the practice has also undermined the government’s claim to abide by rule of law.

“They know it’s bad for China’s soft power abroad and for legitimacy at home,” said Jerome Cohen, a Chinese law expert at New York University.

Even if reality has caught up with reform rhetoric, Didi Kirsten Tatlow of The New York Times reported Monday that delegates to this month’s National People’s Congress were issuing strong calls to end the laojiao system:

“The reeducation-through-labor system to a certain extent makes citizens live in fear,” said Dai Zhongchuan, a delegate and law professor from Huaqiao University in Fujian Province, in a report by china.com.cn, the news portal of the State Council Information Office and the National Internet Information Office.

“Not to go through the courts to decide on a crime is to deprive and limit personal freedoms. Not to take steps to restrict and monitor this can very easily lead to the abuse of power,” said Mr. Dai.

Xinhua News also claimed that lawmakers still recognize the need for reform:

The labor camp system, known as laojiao, was “a disgrace to China’s national image and required urgent reform,” as it runs against the principles of lawful governance and justice which the country pursues, said Yang Weicheng, who is a deputy to the National People’s Congress (NPC) and lawyer from Shandong Province.

Deng Hui, an NPC deputy and law school dean from Jiangxi Province, said the labor camp system violated various laws, including the Law on Legislation and the Administrative Penalty Law. It’s also a deviation from a human rights convention the Chinese government had signed, he added.

“The reform of laojiao is imminent and inescapable,” Deng said.

See also previous CDT coverage of China’s re-education through labor system.

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About 2,200 members of the 12th CPPCC National Committee will discuss major issues including the election of new leaders of the top advisory body and proposals for the coming National People’s Congress (NPC) on Tuesday. They will also review government work reports and hear recommendations for improvement.

“This year’s two sessions have a distinct feature, which is to witness the transition of the top government leaders,” Yun Jie, director of the administration research department at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Sunday, adding that a smooth leadership transition is crucial to China’s future over at least the next five years.

Chi Fulin, director of domestic reform think tank the China (Hainan) Institute for Reform and Development, expects the meetings to shed light on China’s future reforms because NPC deputies and CPPCC members will make proposals to the government on issues concerning people’s livelihoods and state affairs.

Lü Xinhua, a CPPCC spokesman, said 840 proposals had been submitted by members as of Saturday noon. The Global Times found many of the proposals tackle issues including fighting corruption, institutional restructuring and environmental protection, particularly curbing air and water pollution.

While last year’s congress was held amid the breaking scandal involving former Chongqing Party chief Bo Xilai, this year’s congress aims to refocus public attention elsewhere. From the New York Times:

Most analysts agree that the proceedings this year will ignore the plight of Mr. Bo, who is being detained awaiting prosecution on charges of corruption, abuse of power and obstruction of justice.

This year, the party’s new top leaders, Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang, have paved the way for the 13-day session with vows to end flagrant privileges and self-enrichment by officials and their families. They have also vowed to create a more efficient government, and reduce the acrid smog that has enveloped Beijing and other northern Chinese cities for weeks this winter.

“They’ve already taken many steps that have raised hopes among ordinary people — now we’re looking for signs that the hopes can be satisfied,” said Deng Yuwen, an editor for The Study Times, a weekly newspaper published by the Central Party School in Beijing. “The congress won’t have any breakthroughs, but it can indicate where and how fast the leaders want to take things.”

Yet the congress itself is widely viewed as a rubber stamp, with any debate or negotiations taking place behind the scenes. For the many journalists who attend the proceedings, it can be difficult to gain access to key players or to inside information about how proposals are introduced and debated. The Wall Street Journal’s China Real Time reports:

While delegates to the two meetings will get to discuss key plans for streamlining the government and even make recommendations, it’s hard to conceive of this pageant as much more than a talk shop when there is only one full session a year.

The quest for authoritative and objective reporting might be easier with a little less secrecy surrounding even the simplest information. A list of all delegates to the advisory body was released without explanation of what any of the more than 2,000 representatives did to get into this august body. Even the time of the CPPCC’s opening session was kept under wraps until the last moment – and they were similarly coy with the closing date for the parliament session, which formally opens Tuesday.

That presents a bit of a challenge for serious news coverage, leaving state media to occupy the role of stenographer. CPPCC chairman Jia Qinglin noted that over the last five years the advisory body had organized more than 500 in-depth studies, zeroing in on the economy, people’s livelihood and regional development, state media reported. Xinhua revealed that a total of 28,930 proposals had been submitted by CPPCC members over the past five years, and 26,583 of these had been addressed. There were no details on which had actually made it into policy or law.

For domestic media, reporting on the congress is tightly proscribed. CDT recently translated a list of ten topics that are off-limits for reporting during the session.

One piece of data – the annual military budget – was not revealed at the press conference on the eve of the session’s opening as expected [See update below]. As AP reports:

The legislature’s spokeswoman defended booming military spending Monday, saying the vast investment has contributed to global peace and stability, though she did not announce the coming year’s percentage increase, as usually has been done on the eve of the legislature’s opening.

With China now the world’s No. 2 military spender after the U.S., the amount of this year’s increase will be a barometer of the complicated relationship between Xi and the politically influential military. A big boost would show Xi wants robust backing for the People’s Liberation Army at a time when China has tense territorial disputes with neighbors and wants to reduce U.S. influence in the region. A smaller increase would show that Xi feels he already has strong military support without the need to pander to its recent demands for ever-larger outlays.

Growth in the military budget should match or exceed last year’s rate, if only to keep up with rising inflation, said Ni Lexiong, a military expert at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law. Tensions with Japan and others, he said, should ensure a bigger voice for the military.

Other changes that are expected to be announced during the congress include an administrative reorganization of government ministries. Notably, the scandal-plagued Ministry of Railways is expected to be demoted and broken into commercial and operational arms. From Reuters:

“Part of the Ministry of Railways will be merged with a super-Ministry of Transport,” said a second source who has leadership ties, requesting anonymity to avoid repercussions for speaking to foreign reporters. The source was referring to the operations of the railways.

A state-owned enterprise will absorb the ministry’s commercial arm, which has responsibility for passenger ticketing and freight operations, the sources added.

The Railways Ministry has faced numerous problems over the past few years, including heavy debts from funding new high-speed lines, waste and fraud. The government has pledged to open the rail industry to private investment on an unprecedented scale.

Individual delegates to the CPPCC and other activists have issued public calls for specific reforms at the NPC. As the New York Times reports, some delegates are calling for an end to re-education through labor, or laojiao, camps, following vague promises from the government on the issue:

“The reeducation-through-labor system to a certain extent makes citizens live in fear,” said Dai Zhongchuan, a delegate and law professor from Huaqiao University in Fujian Province, in a report by china.com.cn, the news portal of the State Council Information Office and the National Internet Information Office.

“Not to go through the courts to decide on a crime is to deprive and limit personal freedoms. Not to take steps to restrict and monitor this can very easily lead to the abuse of power,” said Mr. Dai.

Human Rights Watch issued a letter to Xi Jinping calling for the abolition of laojiao and a number of other reforms.

But as the New York Times article quoted above points out, deeper political reforms are unlikely to come to fruition at the current congress:

The apparent scaling back of the plans for administrative changes reflects how difficult it will be for the leadership to deliver on promises to free up the economy from state-owned enterprises and fight corruption, while still preserving single-party rule, said Zheng Yongnian, director of the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore. “In all these issues, there’s the same basic problem of deep distrust between the people and the government,” Mr. Zheng said. “Because there is so much distrust, the government is reluctant to make deep reforms. What they call reforms turns out be reassigning powers within government, not giving up powers to society. That’s not real reform — and then people feel increasingly frustrated.”

UPDATE: Early Tuesday morning Beijing time, Xinhua released the military budget:

China plans to raise its defense budget by 10.7 percent to 720.2 billion yuan (114.3 billion U.S. dollars) in 2013.

— Xinhua News Agency (@XHNews) March 5, 2013

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Post tags: Bo Xilai, Li Keqiang, NPC 2013, political reform, re-education through labor, super-ministries, Xi Jinping
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@XinhuaViewpoint: [Xi Jinping: CPC should put up with sharp criticism] At a February 6 Spring Festival event with non-Party members, Xi Jinping said, “We must continue to strengthen democratic supervision. The CPC should be able to put up with sharp criticism, correct mistakes if it has committed them and avoid them if it has not. Non-CPC personages should meanwhile have the courage to tell the truth, speak words jarring on the ear, and truthfully reflect public aspirations. We must reach the point where people say everything they know and speak without reservations.”

@ 新华视点：【习近平：对中国共产党而言，要容得下尖锐批评】习近平6日下午与党外人士共迎新春时说，要继续加强民主监督。对中国共产党而言，要容得下尖锐 批评，做到有则改之、无则加勉；对党外人士而言，要敢于讲真话，敢于讲逆耳之言，真实反映群众心声，做到知无不言、言无不尽。

While known liberals left comments, CEOs, professors, and other people with more to lose have also criticized Xi. Journalist Xia Youzhi (@夏佑至) suggests an end to “entrapment,” while property developer Ren Zhiqiang (@任志强) recommends “not sending those who offend you to re-education through labor.” The government’s penchant for punishing its critics leaves many questioning Xi’s motives for this call for “sharp criticism.”

For now, dissenting comments left for Xinhua Viewpoint have simply been silenced. Only praise and thumbs-up emoticons remain:

Via CDT Chinese.

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While the government has provided no details about what it intends to do, it is not likely that the re-education archipelago — an estimated 350 labor camps with about 160,000 inmates — will be closed anytime soon. Presumably the camps will continue to hold inmates sentenced for crimes like drug abuse, prostitution and minor offenses.

But the proposed change could put an end to China’s largest system of administrative detention, a punishment imposed solely through an administrative decision, without any trial.

[...] Some lawyers have pointed out that Re-education Through Labor is unlawful under the current Constitution and China’s obligations as a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1998. They have advocated instead that the judiciary should set up special courts to handle minor offenses.

Regardless of which route is chosen, any improvements on paper might be quickly reversed in practice if not accompanied by more comprehensive legal reforms. After China abolished the crime of “counterrevolution” in 1997, in what was then hailed as a major advance, the only real change proved to be that political offenders were sentenced under “state security” crimes instead.

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The use of the controversial laojiao system will be tightly restricted, with lawmakers expected to approve its abolition this year, a top government legal adviser has confirmed.

Chen Jiping, deputy director of the China Law Society, said the changes to laojiao, or re-education through labor, announced at the national political and legal work conference on Jan 7, are imminent.

As part of discussions with legal experts from law societies nationwide about the major tasks, he said the closed-door conference had committed to reducing the use of the controversial punishment this year until the National People’s Congress, the top legislature, can entirely scrap the system.

AFP has more background on the system and recent public anger over its implementation:

It is another signal that the widely criticised system – where people can be sentenced to up to four years’ re-education by a police panel, without an open trial – is coming to an end.

The comments come after the Communist Party’s newly installed leader Xi Jinping said the organisation recognised as a “pressing problem” that it was “out of touch with the people”.

Opponents say the camps are used to silence government critics and would-be petitioners who seek to bring their complaints against officials to higher authorities.

Earlier this month reports emerged briefly that the system – known as laojiao – would be abolished, but they were swiftly deleted and replaced with predictions of reforms, with few details and no timetable.

Because of its use against dissidents and petitioners, human rights activists have expressed concern that the government has not yet explained if another form of “administrative detention” will replace laojiao. From a statement from Human Rights Watch:

Public outrage over RTL cases has grown in recent months, particularly about RTL punishments given to individuals who complain about the government and who express their opinions online, including Tang Hui, a mother sent to RTL in 2012 for complaining to the government about the rape of her young daughter. In 2012, a senior official responsible for judicial system reforms acknowledged that there was “consensus” for “reforming the RTL system.” Other recent government decisions, such as removing the head of the Ministry of Public Security as a permanent member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo in 2012, may also reflect central government awareness of public anger over the impunity enjoyed by the domestic security apparatus.

Over the summer of 2012, authorities announced a pilot scheme in four cities to test out reforms to the system. Little is known about these “reforms” except that the name of the system has been changed to “Education and Correction.” It is therefore unclear, after the government “stops using” the system, whether it will be reformed, abolished, or replaced by another administrative detention system with a different name.

Read more background about the re-education through labor system and recent cases that have generated public outrage, via CDT.

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Established in 1957 under Mao, the system (known as laojiao) has been used as an easy way for police, on their own authority, to imprison people. Official statistics from the endof 2008 show that 160,000 people were imprisoned in 350 laojiao facilities nationwide. (Laojiao camps are different from other camps formerly known as laogai, whose inmates have been through the judicial system.) Foreign pressure groups say there are more.

Dissidents have been among those imprisoned this way, but only as a very small proportion of the total. Many more are suspected drug addicts, prostitutes or petitioners. House-church Christians and adherents to officially banned spiritual groups, such as Falun Gong, have also been dealt with through laojiao camps. The lack of oversight has left the police and camp operators free to abuse the system to settle personal vendettas or profit from the work of prisoners.

After Meng’s statement, some expressed excitement while others aired their doubts. Microblog coverage of and commentary on the declaration quickly began disappearing, and Xinhua issued a story “watering down” Meng’s sweeping statement, fanning skepticism of the abolishment that Meng had seemingly outlined. CNN reports:

After media outlets confirmed the news with officials who attended the meeting Meng spoke at, the original articles reporting the decision vanished from the Internet. A subsequent Xinhua news story watered down Meng’s statement, committing the government only to “advancing reforms” of RTL — which is old news — a long-stated but never-implemented goal.

[...]The tepid Xinhua announcement promising to “reform” RTL suggests that instead of abolition, the government will merely tinker at the margins of the existing system. Fears this might be the case derive from the August 2012 announcement of a pilot scheme in four cities. Few details are available, except that the name of the system was revised from Re-education to “Education and Correction,” and minor constraints on the police’s ability to impose these punishments were established.

Click through to see CNN’s accompanying video interview with RTL-reform activists.

The South China Morning Post ran an opinion piece from NYU professor Jerome Cohen, in which the seasoned scholar of Chinese law probes the true meaning of Meng’s statement, determining that the RTL as we know will not be disappearing by the year’s end:

What did Meng mean? There are many possibilities. Did he simply mean that, in the exercise of its discretion, the police would at least temporarily suspend sending a couple of hundred thousand defenceless people to labour camps each year? Did he also mean that, in the coming months, the more than 300 existing re-education through labour sites would be emptied of their current occupants.

Or did he mean even less – that the government would only change the name of this notorious punishment but keep it in substance? Ever since its formal establishment in 1957, the police have lobbied tenaciously to retain this instrument of control, which subjects individuals to long-term detention in the name of social “harmony” without bothering to seek their indictment by prosecutors and trial, conviction, sentencing and appellate review by courts.

One thing Meng’s statement plainly did not foreshadow is the end of labour camps. Contrary to some media reports, he dealt solely with the “non-criminal” or “administrative” punishment known as “re-education through labour” dispensed by the police alone, not with the criminal punishment to which many offenders are sentenced by courts. Many convicted criminals will continue to be sent to labour camps or conventional prisons.

An article from The Atlantic echoes Cohen’s sentiment – that despite Meng’s assertion, labor camps will not be abolished anytime soon. What may instead be on the immediate agenda is the institution of a substitute system, one that may not encompass the hopes of the many who want to see the current system abolished:

For those who support reforming the system, the truly knotty question is “how.” Some argue that all criminal justice can and thus should be meted out within the framework of the Criminal Law (for felonies) and the Security Administration Punishment Law (for misdemeanors). Others insist that a reformed version of the laojiao system is still needed to fill the gaps between the Criminal Law and the Security Administration Punishment Law. According to China Radio International (CRI) Online (@国际在线), the National People’s Congress and its standing committee prefer the latter. It is already on the legislative agenda to institute a new system to replace laojiao, tentatively titled the “Rehabilitation Act for Illegal Activities.”

In an interview with CRI, Hong Daode, professor at the China University of Political Science and Law, explained the People’s Congress’ reasoning. “There are criminals in our society who, if handled by the Security Administration Punishment Law, cannot be fully educated and rehabilitated, yet the Criminal Law is overly harsh for them. Drug users are an example. So we need something in between. ”

It follows that the oft-discussed question of whether authorities are calling for laojiao to be “reformed” or “ended” makes no substantive difference. Intead, the key is ensuring that the Rehabilitation Act, once implemented, will not leave loopholes for abuse as the laojiao system has done. Lawyer Si Weijiang (@斯伟江) pointed out that the new Act must integrate sufficient checks and balances: “If the law, no matter in what form, still gives police the final say, or makes no room for powerful checks and balances from the judiciary, it will still share the essence of the laojiao system.” Mr. Si adds that it must also be clear to whom the Rehabilitation law applies.

Caixin’s Hu Shuli also says that to effectively address overarching concerns about the LTR system, police power must be reined in:

Unchecked police power is one reason the labor re-education system has persisted to this day. The case of Sun Zhigang is instructive. Outrage over the death of the migrant worker in 2003 led to the end of the administrative measure of detaining and repatriating people without a household registration in the city. Yet it did not weaken police power.

Thus, today, it is not enough to demand a stop to re-education through labor; the police’s wings must be clipped and the rule of law must function effectively.

Opinion is divided on how to end the system and what better system could replace it. Some scholars have suggested the introduction of a rehabilitation bill or a communal corrections bill. Yet others say such bills should not be linked with the labor re-education system.

[...]As with the move 10 years ago to end the illegal detention of migrants, the effort today to end re-education through labor is intended to rein in police power. Thus, we must be alert to how police officials might reassert their power in other ways. This means imposing more effective checks on them.

For more on the re-education through labor system, see prior CDT coverage.

© josh rudolph for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Hu Shuli, Jerome cohen, judicial reform, labor camps, re-education through labor, reform
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Secretary of the Commission for Political and Legal Affairs of the CPC Central Committee Meng Jianzhu told the conference that the CPC Central Committee has deliberated over (the reform) and “the system of re-education through labor is expected to come to a stop this year once the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC) approves the proposal,” the Xinhua News Agency reported Monday.

According to caixin.com, Meng also said that before approval by the NPC Standing Committee, the use of re-education penalties should be strictly controlled, and the system shouldn’t be applied to petitioners.

However, Meng’s statement on the “stopping” of the system disappeared on major news portals within hours.

Responding to a question about the brief appearance of the news, Qu Xinjiu, a criminal law professor with the China University of Political Science and Law, told the Global Times that “The government has been very careful when dealing with the re-education through labor problem.”

“There are loopholes in China’s current legal system where people who threaten the safety of others are not necessarily subject to punishment by the law,” Qu said. “China may not be fully ready to abolish the re-education policy until we have figured out a way to close the loopholes.”

China’s RTL system, or “Laodong Jiaoyang” (劳动教养), was established in the 1950s and allows public security officials to detain criminals and dissidents in labor camps without the benefit of a judicial hearing. The Ministry of Justice’s Bureau of Re-education Through Labor Administration estimated that there were 160,000 people in 350 camps as of the end of 2008, though a United Nations Human Rights Council working group put the tally at 190,000 in an early 2009 report. Prominent voices within China have come out against the RTL system, most recently when police sent the mother of a rape victim in Hunan Province to a labor camp in August 2012 for “disruption of social order.”

The Global Times added that Monday’s news “sparked widespread celebration among the public,” with one former village official calling it “a major step forward in judicial reform.” Chen Dongsheng, a bureau chief of the Justice Ministry’s Legal Daily, attended the conference and relayed Meng’s statement to The Associated Press:

The proposal must first be sent to China’s legislature, the National People’s Congress, for approval, Chen quoted Meng as saying.

Chen said he heard Meng make the pledge at a conference carried on closed-circuit television. China’s supreme court and other government offices declined to comment, although the respected independent magazine Caixin said it had confirmed Chen’s report with an unidentified conference participant.

“Meng said the reeducation system had played a useful role in the past but conditions had now changed,” Chen told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

NPR’s Louisa Lim spoke with former village official and outspoken RTL critic Ren Jianyu, who spent time in a labor camp as a young adult and “had a mixed reaction” to the news:

“When I first saw the news, I was very happy. At least it’s a small step toward reform. It shows a trend in the top leadership,” he says. “But the road is still very long.”

A propaganda film about one labor camp shows blue-suited inmates bent over their work making electrical wiring. The inmates make computer cables and headphones for MP3 players.

Ren says he worked for about 10 hours a day, during which he was not allowed to speak to fellow inmates. He seldom had a day off.

It was unclear, however, what shape any reforms would take as the official announcement contained few details. In addition, some microblog posts touting the news did not stay up for long. Voice of America posted a screen shot of a CCTV post that was later removed:

Andrew Jacobs of The New York Times noted that the way in which the news emerged, with statements by Cheng and others appearing briefly before being deleted, may have quelled any optimism that the system may go away completely. And human rights researcher Joshua Rosenzweig expressed skepticism while tweeting in real-time as news of the reforms began to vanish from Chinese social media:

Official media outlets’ posts on RTL starting to disappear from Weibo h/t @chinanalyst
— Joshua Rosenzweig (@siweiluozi) January 7, 2013

Xinhua: China to reform re-education through labor systembit.ly/117uCBV // this tells me nothing
— Joshua Rosenzweig (@siweiluozi) January 7, 2013

“劳教” doesn’t appear anywhere in Legal Daily front-page coverage of CCPL work conference
— Joshua Rosenzweig (@siweiluozi) January 7, 2013

Similarly, in a Monday press release, Amnesty International’s Roseann Rife cautioned that more detail was needed on the reforms:

“If these reports are true, clearly this is a step in the right direction, but the proposed reforms are unclear and need to be spelled out in detail and subject to open public debate.

“The danger is the authorities’ rhetoric creates a veneer of reform without the reality changing for the hundreds of thousands of people detained in such facilities nor is it clear that any new system will meet international standards.”

China has “been debating how to change its labor camp system for much of the past decade,” according to The Telegraph’s Malcom Moore, who reported that four major Chinese cities debuted an alternative pilot system last year. But Nicholas Bequelin of Human Rights Watch tweeted that while the announcement itself is a step in the right direction, anything short of completely ending the program will be disappointing:

Meng Jianzhu’s annoucement that China is to “stop” using Reeducation-through-labor is big news. But what will replace it?
— Nicholas Bequelin 林伟 (@Bequelin) January 7, 2013

Xi Jinping is sending a strong signal with the RTL announcement. The Gong’an has lost some of the political clout it had under Hu.
— Nicholas Bequelin 林伟 (@Bequelin) January 7, 2013

What the int. community should say now is “No ‘RTL-light’ system to replace Reeducation-Through-Labor please! Only abolition will do.”
— Nicholas Bequelin 林伟 (@Bequelin) January 7, 2013

In a Tuesday press release, Human Rights Watched echoed Bequelin’s sentiment that China should abolish the RTL system entirely:

“This decision, if it truly put an end to Re-Education Through Labor, would be an indisputable step towards establishing rule of law in China,” said Sophie Richardson, China director. “Courageous activists and ordinary citizens have long fought to end this system of arbitrary detention.”

…

Human Rights Watch urged the Chinese government to abolish the RTL system entirely and determine new laws that establish a system to punish minor crimes, one that is consistent with the Chinese Constitution as well as its international human rights obligations. The judiciary – not the police –should be responsible for considering charges, determining guilt, and assigning appropriate punishment. Individuals accused must have access to court proceedings, the right to assistance of counsel of choice, and all other fair trial guarantees. The Chinese government should also explore alternative measures other than detention for minor offenses, such as compulsory community service. In addition, the Chinese government should take measures to eradicate torture and other cruel and inhuman treatment in its detention facilities and prosecute those responsible.

“Cosmetic changes to the system or cutting down the amount of time served in administrative detention will do nothing to end RTL’s notorious abuses, and might only further entrench the system,” said Richardson. “Only abolition will suffice, and it is time that the new administration of Xi Jinping takes steps towards ensuring due process.”

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Amnesty International, Beijing, CPC Central Committee, human rights watch, Internet censorship, judicial reform, Justice System, Labor Camp, microblogs, Ministry of Justice, National People's Congress, online public opinion, re-education through labor, reform, Ren Jianyu, Ren Jiayu, sina weibo, Tang Hui, Xi Jinping
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“Only Almighty God can save humanity.”

The following example of censorship instructions, issued to the media and/or Internet companies by various central (and sometimes local) government authorities, has been leaked and distributed online. Chinese journalists and bloggers often refer to those instructions as “Directives from the Ministry of Truth.” CDT has collected the selections we translate here from a variety of sources and has checked them against official Chinese media reports to confirm their implementation.

Since directives are sometimes communicated orally to journalists and editors, who then leak them online, the wording published here may not be exact. The original publication date is noted after the directives; the date given may indicate when the directive was leaked, rather than when it was issued. CDT does its utmost to verify dates and wording, but also takes precautions to protect the source.

Central Propaganda Department: Discontinue reporting on recent public conversion assemblies and other illegal activities orchestrated by the Almighty God cult.

Xinchang Launches Special Investigation of Evil Cult

Source: Xinchang County [Zhejiang Province] Government Portal
Date: December 14, 2012
Visitors: 30

On December 13, Xinchang convened a meeting on the special investigation of the “Real God” cult. County Party Standing Committee member and Public Security Bureau Director Pan Yimin was present.

Pan asks that all levels of authority unite their thinking, raise awareness, stress key points, and devote utmost attention to looking out for the “Real God” cult. Realistically grasp the organizational characteristics, management targets, re-education, and guidance of [key members of] the evil cult. Complete tasks to standard, organize safeguards to standard, and coordinate government departments, villages, and town (streets) to standard. Practically create a joint workforce. Effectively stymie the momentum of the evil cult’s public conversion activities. Guarantee the political and social harmony and stability of the entire county.

During the meeting, county Politics and Law Commission Vice-Secretary Yang Zhuodong expounded on the harmfulness and present severity of “Real God” and other evil cults, setting forth prevention and control work for the current period of time. County Political Commissar Qiu Guoting introduced the origins and characteristics of the “Real God” cult, putting forth the specific plan for its investigation and management.

According to our understanding, “Real God” is also known as “Eastern Lightning.” Cult members call it “Almighty God.” This group creates an atmosphere of social panic by spreading rumors and propagating false claims and heresies, such as the apocalypse. The cult seriously endangers social stability. It is essentially an anti-social, misanthropic, perverse religious sect. Recently its activities have become rather common in certain villages and towns in Xinchang, particularly in remoter areas. It has an evil influence; the need to crack down and bring it under control is acute. All levels of the government are to alert the masses to awaken to the nature of the “Real God” cult, such that they do not fall prey to the faith. When propaganda materials or individuals from this evil cult are discovered, please report this immediately to the local police station or call the police by dialing 110. (December 12, 2012)

中宣部：对近期一些地方发生全能神邪教组织公开传教聚众滋事等非法活动不再报道。

新昌部署邪教组织专项排查处置工作

信息来源：新昌县政府门户网站 日期：2012-12-14 浏览次数：30

12月13日，新昌召开“实际神”邪教组织专项排查处置工作会议，县委常委、公安局长潘益民出席会议。

潘益民要求各级各部门统一思想，提高认识，突出重点，高度重视防范处置“实际神”邪教组织工作，切实把握好邪教组织特点、处置重点和教育引导工作，做到工 作措施到位，组织保障到位，部门、乡镇（街道）协作到位，切实形成工作合力，有效遏制邪教组织公开传教活动势头，确保全县政治社会和谐稳定。

会上，县委政法委副书记杨卓东阐述了“实际神”以及其他邪教组织的危害性和当前形势的严峻性，部署了当前以及今后一个时期对邪教组织的防控工作。县公安局政委裘国挺介绍了“实际神”邪教组织的产生过程及其特点，提出了具体的专项排查处置方案。

据了解，“实际神”又称“东方闪电”，组织内称“全能神”。该组织通过散布谣言、宣扬世界末日等妖言邪说，制造社会恐慌气氛，对社会稳定造成了严重危害， 其实质是一个反社会、反人类的邪教，目前在新昌个别乡镇特别是偏远乡镇活动较为频繁，影响恶劣，打防控形势严峻。各级政府提醒广大群众要认清“实际神”的 邪教本质，做到不信邪教，发现该邪教宣传资料和人员的，请及时向当地派出所举报，或拨打110报警电话。

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: apocalypse, censorship, church of almighty god, Directives from the Ministry of Truth, harmony, hoaxes, media censorship, Ministry of Truth, Pan Yimin, propaganda, Qiu Guoting, re-education through labor, rumors, social stability, stability maintenance, Yang Zhuodong
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Incriminating? T-shirt proclaiming “Give me liberty or give me death.”

Netizens were dumbstruck by Global Times Chief Editor Hu Xijin’s November 21 weibo in favor of free speech:

HuXijin: I hope the long-term impact of the Ren Jianyu case in today’s Internet age is the establishment of precedent that will end the political and cultural tradition of the  “criminalization of speech.” Political speech and the propagation of [other’s] speech which does not infringe upon the rights of others and does not precipitate concrete action should not be criminalized. In other words, if “comment deletion” must continue for a time, then a resolute end should come to the “criminalization of comment posting.” This is a key pathway to achieving a higher level of free speech.

胡锡进：希望任建宇案在互联网时代产生判例的长远影响，终结“因言获罪”的政治和文化传统。不涉及侵权和无任何实际行动的政治性言论和言论传播应获得绝对不 被治罪的权利，换句话说，如果“删贴”还不得不维持一段的话，那么各种“因帖治罪”应彻底结束了。这应是通往更高言论自由的一个关键性台阶。

Ren Jianyu, a young village official in Chongqing, was sentenced to two years of re-education through labor last August for reposting critiques of Chongqing officials on Weibo. This was just months before Chongqing Party Secretary Bo Xilai’s protracted fall from grace. Authorities claimed that T-shirts found in Ren’s apartment emblazoned with the slogan “Give me liberty or give me death” (不自由，毋宁死) proved his intent to stage a coup. Ren was released early from detention on November 19.

Hu Xijin, known as a Party apologist, has been notably outspoken in defense of Ren. He wrote a weibo in this vein in October, before Ren’s appeal court hearing (translated by Tea Leaf Nation):

HuXijin: The appeal hearing of Pengshui University student village official Ren Jianyu’s sentencing to re-education through labor for Weibo retweets has begun. I believe he’ll win. Because [what he did] didn’t harm any individual person, and it was pure speech that didn’t create any social conflicts–the era when these kinds of commentary could be punished for being ‘against the Party [or] against socialism’ needs to come to a thorough conclusion. I hope that when this case is rectified, it will [cut down] the last straw of a thousand-year political tradition of criminalized speech. China needs to move forward.”

胡锡进：重庆彭水县大学生村官任建宇转发微博被劳教申诉案开审。我相信他能赢。因为不带来个人伤害、也不带来社会冲击的的纯言论——无它这些言论多么“反党反社会 主义”——而被治罪的时代该彻底结束了。希望这个案子的纠正成为压倒“因言获罪”千年政治传统的最后一根稻草。中国要往前走。

But netizens shouldn’t get too excited about this about-face. As @waynebabywang (@韦恩卑鄙) points out, Hu still supports censorship through deletion of offending posts. Could it be that Hu thinks this is necessary in a slow move towards real freedom of speech, or merely that he opposes violent punishment for speech “crimes”? Even if Hu does advocate for eventual freedom of speech, he won’t touch the core problem. @yrjang says it right, “ If there is no check on power, sooner or later we’ll backtrack.” Indeed, just one week before Ren’s release, another netizen was arrested for his activity on Twitter, beyond the Great Firewall but not the reach of the police.

CDT Chinese has collected some of the comments Hu received:

HowToThank: Whoa! The harmonious society has begun, eh?

谢怎么：哟，和谐社会开始了是吗

WhiteRiverFishForMen: Is Chief Hu experiencing temporary consciousness? Regardless, you have to give him credit for this one.

白河钓叟：胡总临时性清醒？无论如何要赞一个

yrjang: Keep dreaming. If there is no check on power, sooner or later we’ll backtrack.

yrjang：做梦，权力不受制约，迟早还得倒退。

kejinjin: Certainly, I must have opened up my weibo incorrectly or something. This can’t be Hu Xijin, right? His account must have been compromised.

肥羊高翔 ：一定是我打开微博的方式不对这货不是胡锡进，一定是被盗号了

BlueDanube01: Heh heh, you can see which way the wind is blowing from Editor Hu’s weibo.

蓝色多瑙河01：呵呵，从胡编滴微博可以看看风往哪边吹。

UnoilyRapeseed: I support this! Re-education through labor must be abandoned!

菜籽不油：支持! 勞教惡法必須廢!

EternalFatLegEra: Editor Hu, what happened to you? Could it be that political reform is actually on its way?

永远是大腿时代：胡编你肿么了？莫非真要政改了？

HappilyTravelHorizon: I applaud Chief Hu this time. Freedom of speech is a legal right of all citizens, given to us by the constitution. It’s written down on paper.

逍遥天涯行：这一次赞扬胡总。言论自由是公民的法定权利，宪法赋予的，写在纸上的。

FishWantsPotatoesNBeef: Why can’t our government earn international respect? Because our government hasn’t respected its own people.

想吃土豆烧牛肉的青鱼：为什么我们政府得不到国际的尊重？是因为我们政府没有尊重自己的人民。

Cadenza: I bet the central authorities had you test water for them, right?

華彩_Cadenza：是中央让你来放口风的吗？

Silentcnm: Did he give his password to someone else?????

沉默cnm：密码给别人了??????

HappyEarthlyPerson: Now this is a humane thought! Reposting. Could it be that Chief Editor Hu is a moral bisexual?

逍遥地人：这条像点人话！要转。难不成胡主编是人格上的双性？

MESSIAH-: He’s moving faster than the higher-ups. Isn’t he afraid of being criticized?

MESSIAH-：步调比上面快了，不怕挨批吗？

waynebabywang: He’s just kissing ass in a new way. He still mentioned that comments will continue to be deleted, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

韦恩卑鄙：舔菊新方向而已，着重表示删帖继续，你们管不着

Westernwuhuapiao: A Nobel Peace Laureate is still in prison

西部五花膘：那还关着一个诺贝尔奖获得者

Read more comments here.

Translation by Little Bluegill.

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: censorship, Chongqing, freedom of speech, Global Times, Hu xijin, Internet censorship, Netizen Voices, netizens, political reform, re-education through labor, Ren Jianyu, sina weibo, weibo
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Fortunately for Ren, he had thousands of impassioned web users in his corner, who seemed aware that Ren’s case would have repercussions for their own ability to use social media. In October, thousands tweeted their support for Ren and outrage at his treatment. What most stirred online ire was not simply Ren’s imprisonment., but the evidence against him. When Ren’s case was initially tried, authorities introduced as evidence a T-Shirt, found in Ren’s home at the time of his arrest, with the words “Freedom or Death” printed in Chinese.

[…] Ren also has his lawyer to thank. Pu Zhiqiang (@哈儿浦志强有戏) is well known for taking cases involving press freedom, and Pu was aggressive not only in bringing Ren’s case to trial, but in using social media to enlist public sympathy. Pu recently told the Global Times, “Ren Jianyu’s case has a certain amount of resonance and social influence. Our nation’s laws protect the right to free speech, but Ren was imprisoned for a speech crime. His receiving ‘re-education through labor’ was extremely unreasonable.”

Weighing against encouraging signs from Chongqing, however, is news from Beijing of a 36-year-old fund manager detained on the eve of the 18th Party Congress for “spreading false and terrible information”. Zhai Xiaobing, or @stariver, posted a satirical tweet based on the Final Destination series of horror films on November 5th. He has not yet been released. With translation by Yaxue Cao at Seeing Red in China:

#剧透推 #慎入 死神来了6即将上映。大会堂突然倒塌，正在开会的2000多人只有7人幸免，事后却又一一离奇死亡。是上帝的游戏，还是死神的怒火，神秘数字18怎样开启地狱之门？11月8日全球院线震撼登场！

— 星河舰队 (@Stariver) November 5, 2012

.#SpoilerTweet #Enter-at-your-own-peril “Final Destination 6” has arrived. In which the Great Hall of the People collapses all of a sudden. All 2,000+ people meeting there died except for 7 of them. But afterwards, the seven die one after another in bizarre ways. Is it a game of God, or the wrath of Death? How will 18, the mysterious number, unlock the gate of Hell? Premieres globally on November the 8th to bring you an earthshaking experience!

Twitter is sometimes seen as a relatively safe haven compared with domestic services like Sina Weibo, but as past cases show, the service is actively monitored. In 2010, user @wangyi09 was sentenced to a year of re-education through labour for tweeting the five characters, “Go, angry youth!”, jokingly encouraging anti-Japanese protesters.

A petition has been set up to call for Zhai’s release, with signatories so far including Bei Feng, Hu Jia, Mo Zhixu, and Ai Weiwei. The petition letter concludes, from Oiwan Lam’s translation at Global Voices Advocacy:

We hope the the Beijing police shows a sense of humor and do not create a big incident out of a small issue. In particular, do not ruin the image of the new leadership soon after the 18th Party Congress. Such groundless prosecution against citizen who exercise their freedom of expression is disgraceful. We urge the immediate release of Twitter user @stariver.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 18th party congress, Ai Weiwei, anti-Japan protests, Beijing, Bo Xilai, Chongqing, Internet censorship, netizens, pu zhiqiang, re-education through labor, sina weibo, social media, Twitter, wang yi
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Front: If you can fight for democracy and human rights, what sorrow is there in death?
Back: If you cannot be free and equal, what gain is there in life?

能争取民主人权死又何哀（前）
得不到自由平等生有何益（后）

Surprisingly, the text of the Weibo pictured above (“A handsome guy suddenly appeared at Xinjiekou in Nanjing, really handsome” 南京新街口惊现一帅哥，真帅) still returns search results. The username has been cut off, but this one post alone received 6062 reposts and 1452 comments. CDT Chinese has collected words of praise and caution for their brother-in-arms:

ZhouYu424: Braver than going to the Diaoyu Islands.

周宇424：比去钓鱼岛更有勇气。

wudongwei: The pride of Nanjing.

wudongwei：南京的骄傲

JuiceSueeze: Now this is what’s f**king called backbone.

榨取剩余妹汁：这TM才叫脊梁

StudyBuddyGuoYukuan: Our compatriot is still enslaved. Sweet boy, what joy is there in life, what regret in death?

郭宇宽以研究会友:同胞还在受奴役，好男儿，生又何欢，死又何憾？

HuozhouWhetstone: One person isn’t enough. We need 500 million like this… You understand.

火洲砺剑：—个人太少。。要有五亿人都这样。。。你懂的

EverywhereGspots: Front: If you cannot have a high rank and a mistress, what gain is there in life? Back: If you can fight to run naked, what sorrow is there in emigrating? Side: Party-state. //@BeautyArcher: Front: If you cannot have a high rank and a mistress, what gain is there in life? Back: If you can fight to run naked, what sorrow is there in emigrating? Side: Corrupt.

处处G点: 上联：得不到三公二奶党有何益。下联：能争取裸奔转移国又何哀。横批：党国。 //@美女射狼:上联：得不到三公二奶贪有何益。下联：能争取裸奔转移腐又何哀。横批：贪腐。

ManuIsBashensIdol: Most of us will turn up our noses at these people. We think they’re good-for-nothings who can only shout a few slogans, worthless trash. But it is precisely because these people exist in China that the government has any misgivings about its actions and considers the will of the people when making policy, like with health care and land compensation. We enjoy the benefits these people bring us while mentally turning away from them.

马努是巴神的偶像：我们见到这些人，大多数人对他们嗤之以鼻。觉得他们除了会喊两句口号，什么都不会，一事无成的垃圾。但中国就是因为这些人的存在中国政府才会顾虑多点。在制定政策时才会考虑到民意。如医疗，土地赔偿。我们一边享受着这些人带给我们的利益，一边心理面歧视他们。

zd319: I hope he can get home safely. //@MiJiejie: //@ExquisiteSapphire: —>//@DummyLY: Not far from the re-education center.

zd319: 希望他能安全回家//@弥介介: //@水青玉玲珑: —>//@小痴LY: 离劳教所不远了
ZhangHongfeng: The sign on his side must say: labor re-education. //@RenWeixin: Sign on his side: He will be quietly arrested.

张洪峰:横批应该是：劳教。 //@任卫新:横批：静等被抓。

UFOguest: If he’s sent to labor re-education for wearing his wishes on a sandwich board, our country is beyond the pale.

幽浮客：如果因为在自己的前胸后背挂了这么两句表达心愿的话，就要被抓捕被劳教，那这个国度可真够邪乎的。
GoldenDumpling: Take a walk to change China. Surrounding and watching is a virtue.

金牌爽饺：散步改变中国，围观是种美德。

Via CDT Chinese.
“Netizen Voices” is an original CDT series. If you would like to reuse this content, please follow the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 agreement.

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: democracy, diaoyu islands, Human Rights, mistresses, Nanjing, Netizen Voices, netizens, re-education through labor, Sign Brother, sina weibo, weibo
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