China to reform re-education practices

The Chinese government will advance reforms for its controversial re-education through labor system this year, according to a national political and legal work conference held on Monday. As China.org reported in a story released yesterday, the move comes as a reform

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to policies allowing police to detain people for up to four years without an open trial, leading experts to argue that it contradicts high-level laws, including China’s constitution. In a follow-up story, the New York Times reported that while the government report lack details, “legal advocates said they were hopeful that the five-decade-old system for locking up offenders without trial would be significantly modified, if not abolished altogether.

“’If true, this would be an important advance,’ said Zhang Qianfan, a law professor at Peking University who has long pushed for the system’s demise. ‘It’s a tool that is widely abused.” Continue reading “China to reform re-education practices”