China broods over fate of penal gulag after EU pressure

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, Li, 40, spent two years in a prison called Shandong No. 2 Labor Re-education Camp. 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 prisons in this system are an estimated 300,000 prostitutes, drug users, petty criminals and political prisoners who have been stripped of legal rights.

Change mulled

In a nondemocratic country like China, such abuse of legal rights might not seem surprising. But this system, a relic of the Mao Zedong (毛澤東) era, is now presenting a difficult issue for a modern day Communist Party that remains obsessed with security and political control.

The government this year is expected to begin privately considering whether, and how, to change the system. The EU has stated that for China to achieve one of its most prized goals -- lifting Europe's arms embargo -- it needs to make a significant gesture on human rights.

But changing labor re-education could force the Communist Party to give up a major tool it has used to maintain its hold on power.

"It is important for the power holders that a system like labor re-education stay in place," said Gao Zhisheng, a lawyer in Beijing and an advocate of changing the system.

No trials

The crackdown on Falun Gong followers like Li is a case in point. When Jiang Zemin (江澤民) ordered a roundup as president in 1999, the existence of labor re-education meant the police could sweep up thousands of people without the complications of court trials.

"If they wanted to imprison these tens of thousands of followers through normal judicial processes, it would have been impossible because what these people were doing was not a crime," Gao said.

For advocates of change, the heart of the debate is not about Falun Gong but about the broader effort at systemic change to establish "rule of law."

Chen Xingliang (陳興良), deputy dean of the Beijing University Law School, said these advocates want to transform labor re-education into a misdemeanor correctional system where detainees would have a right to a lawyer and a trial before a judge.

Sentences, which can now reach a maximum of four years, would be limited to about 18 months. And, most significantly, authority would shift from the police to China's judicial branch.