(Clearwisdom.net) China's "Re-Education through Labor" system is an outcome of the class struggle in the 1950's. It is a typical example of how Chinese leaders disregard the law.
A law in any country must be established by the legislative system before it can be called law. For instance, in many countries of the world, laws are drawn up by the parliament or congress. In today's China, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) makes the law. And China's law for making laws also says that laws are made solely by the Standing Committee of the NPC, and that the State Council and the Ministry of Public Security can only make administrative regulations.
According to the law, China's "Re-Education through Labor" trial method, made by the Ministry of Public Security and cascaded by the State Council in 1982, should only have been treated as a tentative administrative regulation at the time. Later, the Ministry of Public Security removed the word "trial" from the name. Even so, it still has not passed NPC's Standing Committee, and therefore, it is still no more than an administrative regulation. It is not a law.
China's Law on Administrative Penalty also defines that administrative penalty cannot restrict citizens' personal freedom. In other words, citizens penalized by the administrative penalty must not lose any personal freedom. Accordingly, China's "Re-Education through Labor" system is not a law, but an administrative regulation. Therefore, citizens who are subject to the "Re-Education through Labor" penalty must not be under any restriction of personal freedom.
However, China's "Re-Education through Labor" system has set the rules that Chinese citizens sentenced to "Re-Education through Labor" are under strict restriction of personal freedom. These citizens are all detained in China's "Forced Labor Camps" or "Reform Camps." Their personal freedoms are rigorously restricted. In China, for the same duration, people serving "Re-Education through Labor" and people serving prison sentences suffer the same physical penalties.
Moreover, in terms of mental punishment, people in forced labor camps suffer much harsher treatment than sentence-serving prisoners. Although Chinese prisons also try to reform people's thoughts, the political system of reforming a citizen's thoughts in the labor camps is much more systematic than that in regular prisons. The focus of brainwashing in the prisons is not as clear as in the labor camps.
The policy of China's "Re-Education through Labor" system clearly requires that labor camps change citizens' way of thinking through forced labor and careful political propaganda. It's also known as brainwashing.
Throughout history, the official system designed to change people's way of thinking by force has been unprecedented. No matter how awful some governments have been, most have never done something as evil as creating a system to forcibly change citizens' ways of thinking. But the Chinese Communist government has done that. They created a complete institution to forcibly change people's beliefs. That is, "Re-Education through Labor." It embodies all the evil elements from history. It is a manifestation of the evil forces using government power to contaminate people's morals and conscience. The damage it causes is huge. The "Re-Education through Labor" system is a dangerous poison, much more harmful than the hardest drugs.
Then, how can such an illegal and evil system exist in today's society? It is a direct result of deceitful tricks orchestrated by some evil people.
First of all, during the Cultural Revolution, China's legal system was disabled. The Public Security police, the prosecutors and the court were all paralyzed. After the Cultural Revolution, in an effort to restore the function of the police, the prosecutors and the court, the government gave the police exclusive rights to arrest people. No other department has the authority to make an arrest. Therefore, in the general public's minds, it is legal for the police department to arrest people. In today's China, most people don't understand the law. Most Chinese people naively think that if the police arrest somebody, then this person must have committed a crime. Otherwise, why would they arrest this person? People will tell you that the Cultural Revolution is over; no one gets arrested without a good reason. Therefore in many Chinese people's minds, only the police can arrest people. Hence a common misunderstanding exists. If the police arrest you, then you must have committed a crime. The due processes such as the prosecutor work and trials in the court are only procedures to decide on a proper punishment. There is no question on whether or not this person indeed committed a crime. During and after the Cultural Revolution, the police authority went from useless to absolute power above the law. The evil regime took advantage of the situation and conveniently fooled people into the current misconceptions.
In China, along with the economic development and open door policy, the collective social morality is rapidly declining. Widespread social ills go undeterred. Things that never existed in China quickly found their way in and have become much worse in China. The moral decline is out of control. Under this circumstance, China's traditional legal system could not effectively improve public security and maintain social order. To stay in power, the Communist regime deployed "harsh crackdown" in the late 70's and early 80's. The slogan was, "Heavily and swiftly strike all kinds of crimes and ugly phenomena in society." However, the new policy of "heavily and swiftly strike" might not be readily convenient if a case would need to go through the due process that involves independent Prosecutor and Court trial. Under such a social background, the Communist government conveniently recycled the "Re-Education through Labor" system, which was abolished as early as during the Cultural Revolution.
On the other hand, the Chinese government also swears that it adheres to the policy of "Rule by Law." But the "Re-Education through Labor" fundamentally contradicts China's own criminal law. So how could it be widely used under the law? The resourceful Chinese government played a word game. In their definition, the "Re-Education through Labor" system is a law with "Chinese characteristics." In this way, any universally recognized rules, when applied to China, are subject to some "Chinese characteristics" and become entirely different things altogether. As such, any given popular international law can be tailored to serve the needs of the Chinese political leaders.
China's own constitution clearly states that Chinese citizens cannot be arrested without the prosecutor's approval and they are not guilty unless decided by a court trial.
In other words, Chinese citizens can only receive a verdict after a fair court trial. This is in line with the rest of the world. Moreover, China is now "opening up" its doors to the world. A very important element is to harmonize China's laws with those of the world. In any country, to determine if a citizen has committed crimes can only be done through a fair court trial. This is beyond question in all countries.
Then why in China, are sentences of "Re-Education through Labor" not decided by the courts? Why can the police alone sentence citizens to "Re-Education through Labor?"
Here, the evil plays another trick. In the official definition, "Re-Education through Labor" does not require a guilty verdict. The government says that criminal trials belong to the court, and that the police cannot decide who's guilty. On the other hand, the police can impose administrative penalties on citizens. In their dictionary, a "Re-Education through Labor" is the most severe administrative penalty, not a guilty verdict.
However, China's Law on Administrative Penalty clearly states that, administrative penalty cannot limit a citizen's personal freedom, regardless of the severity of the penalty. Only the laws approved by the Standing Committee of the NPC can define penalty measures restricting a citizen's freedom. China's "Re-Education through Labor" is just an administrative regulation enforced by the police. It has no business in restricting a citizen's personal freedom.
Then, what exactly is China's "Re-Education through Labor" system? If it is an administrative regulation, why does it have the right to take away a citizen's personal freedom for one to three years? Furthermore, the police have the right to arbitrarily extend one's term up to one additional year upon completion of the original sentence without notice. Therefore it is not at all an administrative regulation. On the other hand, can it be a criminal law? The fact is that China already has a complete criminal law, and there can't be a second criminal law. Even if the current criminal law is not perfect, the legislators can always make amendments. There is no need to have a sub-criminal law called "Re-Education through Labor." Can it be a special kind of law? Again, it does not belong to any specific field. It is impossible to define it. Can it be a general law then? No, it cannot, because it was not approved by the Standing Committee of the NPC, and according to China's law-making law, only the Standing Committee of the NPC has the right to make a law. Therefore, "Re-Education through Labor," created and enforced by the police, cannot be a law. In the end, even in China, "Re-Education through Labor" is something nondescript. Although it pretends to be part of the legal system, it has nothing to do with the law. On the contrary, it is a complete monster that truly damages the law.
It not only violates China's current constitution, but also China's law on administrative penalty, China's criminal law, and China's law-making law. It is a cancer in China's legal system.
However, while knowingly damaging China's entire legal system, the government loudly tells a completely different story to cover up its crimes. This is what makes the "Re-Education through Labor" system truly evil.
Since 1999, the "Re-Education through Labor" was actively involved in persecuting Falun Gong practitioners. When its true nature was exposed as "damaging the law by pretending to promote it," the government played another trick and called the labor camps "schools" to educate and influence citizens.
Then how exactly does this "school" educate and influence people?
A school is a place where people learn knowledge, and it is a civilized place. If a school neither teaches beneficial knowledge nor promotes civilized behaviors, and instead forces students to do hard labor, enforces concentration camp-like management, and promotes violence and hatred to reach some political objective, can it still be called a "school?" Absolutely not! Places like this are nothing more than slaughterhouses of modern civilization in the name of a "school."
In summary, China's Forced Labor Camp system is neither the executive branch of the law, nor a school that educates people. On the contrary, it is a place that promotes stupidity, ignorance, and hatred. It's a field for the Chinese Communist Party to display its evil nature. It is time for this monster to dissolve. There is no reason for it to continue to exist.
February 14, 2004
Category: Perspective
