Gazing uncertainly past the camera, she recounted her sins in a soft, hesitant voice. An orange prison jacket had replaced her designer clothing. Though her case might be more salacious than usual, the overall effect was familiar: This was the latest videoed confession aired by China’s state broadcaster.
Guo Meimei (郭美美) is not a convicted criminal, but if anyone doubted the merits of the 23-year-old’s detention, there she was in person, confirming her involvement in illegal gambling and commenting on the numerous men who had offered her large sums of money for sex.
Over the past year, China has paraded a series of high-profile detainees on television, ranging from 70-year-old journalist Gao Yu (高玉) to Peter Humphrey, the British investigator jailed last week for illegally obtaining private information.
Photo: AFP
Many have confessed their guilt to the nation before they have been indicted, let alone tried and convicted. Most have been held for weeks before their admissions were aired.
“Televised confessions serve political needs,” said Wang Qinglei (王青雷), who said he was fired by state-owned broadcaster China Central Television after publicly criticizing such confessions.
“People who have been confessing on the state broadcaster have not done any serious crimes. We should ask ourselves why their confessions should take up the state broadcaster’s precious air time,” Wang said.
While detainees have been interviewed on television before, their confessions have not usually been broadcast until after court cases concluded, he added.
Others said such videos had involved regular criminal cases rather than those with a political dimension.
Chinese-American businessman Charles Xue (薛蠻子) was detained for hiring a prostitute, but also apologized for “irresponsible” online posts in his televised statement. He engaged in outspoken social commentary to 12 million microblog followers.
Gao, a prominent advocate of press freedom, expressed “deep remorse” for obtaining a secret document and sending it to an overseas Web site.
Sympathizers believe the allegations might relate to document No. 9, an internal Chinese Communist Party warning of the dangers posed to China by the spread of ideas such as universal values and Western constitutional democracy.
Confessions have long played a central role in Chinese criminal justice, said Glenn Tiffert, who researches Chinese criminal justice in the 20th century at the University of California, Berkeley.
However, human rights groups have warned that coercion is widespread, though China has vowed to crack down on forced confessions.
For the party, confessions are not only about proving the case against the suspect, but also reforming the individual’s thinking and setting an example to others.
“These are model performances meant to publicly abase high-profile figures, demonstrate their submission to party and state authority, communicate new standards of behavior and warn others to conform, and reclaim popular legitimacy,” Tiffert said.
He drew a comparison with the pretrial publication of confessions in newspapers in earlier anticorruption drives such as the 1951 “three-anti” campaign.
Guo’s cowed demeanor was in striking contrast with her reputation for flaunting designer wares and bragging about her wealth. She had parlayed an Internet scandal into minor celebrity, having initially gaining notoriety for posting pictures of herself living lavishly while falsely claiming she was a senior figure with the Chinese Red Cross. Donations to the charity plummeted because people saw her as evidence of wrongdoing.
“Because of my own vanity, I made a huge mistake,” she said of that incident.
“Guo Meimei is a representative for many social problems... Her sugar daddy, showing off her wealth, charity problems, gambling and prostitution are all very serious social issues. We should really think about those issues reflected by Guo Meimei,” Chinese Central Politics and Law Commission Deputy Publicity Director Chen Li (陳里) said.
Though the details of her case drew plenty of attention, they did not prevent skepticism. Some viewers suggested the authorities were using Guo to divert attention from news stories, including a fatal explosion at a factory the previous day.
Whether agreeing to record confessions has won suspects more lenient treatment is unclear. Some have subsequently been released, but others are still being held months later or face trial.
Lawyer Zhou Ze (周澤) said his journalist client, Liu Hu (劉虎), had a simple reason for refusing to record a confession: “He did not believe he was guilty.”
Liu was released on bail early this month, having been held for a year on suspicion of defamation after accusing a senior official of neglecting his duties.
Zhou said the televised statements were demeaning to individual dignity as well as raising concerns about due process.
“If it is the media [that] decides to publicize televised confessions before a proper trial, it is a violation of media ethics. If the authorities are behind these confessions, it is a severe violation of the basic principle of presumption of innocence,” he said.
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