By Ngawang C. Drakmargyapon
Phayul Special Correspondent
Geneva, 11 May – Last evening Bundestag, Germany’s Parliament, adopted a unanimous resolution condemning in the strongest terms the “the system of Laogai camps in China” and practice like the reeducation through labour system (RTL) of the Communist regime.
On 8 May, during a regular press briefing in Beijing, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu when asked about the German Parliament’s resolution move said: “The question you mentioned involves China’s internal affairs. We are opposed to irresponsible remarks on China’s internal affairs by other countries including the German parliament.”
The Bundestag resolution on China initiated by all major political parties which had passed through the Foreign Affairs Committee of the parliament on 26 April also cites Tibetans, Mongols, Uyghurs and members of religious minorities amongst the victims of the reeducation through labour system. The RTL system is a form of administrative detention imposed without charge, trial or judicial review. It has been used extensively in Tibetan areas of present-day China to detain activists.
However, China’s spokesperson claimed that “the reeducation center safeguards the legitimate rights and interests of those subjected to reeducation through labour. They also enjoy the legitimate right of election, the freedom of religious belief and communication. Their dignity and legitimate private properties shall be protected. They shall not be subject to torture or abuse.”
The Bundestag resolution dwells more specifically on the system forced labour camps of China but there are currently no plans to change this “reform through labour” practice under which political activists have been detained.
Kai Muller, the Executive Director of International Campaign for Tibet-Germany, one of the Tibetan groups in the country, who followed the developments surrounding Bundestag resolution told this report: “We strongly welcome the Bundestag’s clear stand on one of the instruments of oppression in China and hope that the German parliament will continue raising human rights concerns in China and particularly in Tibet.”
The resolution strongly urges China to invite the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN Special Rapporteurs and officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross to investigate the situation in China. But China’s spokesperson avoided answers to this call stating that “2005 witnessed the signature of cooperation memorandum between China and UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, which set the orientation of cooperation in the next three years. Besides UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, we also maintain good relations with other UN organizations in charge of human rights and have received the Special Rapporteur on Religion, members of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, the Special Rapporteur on Education and the Special Rapporteur on Torture.”
The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in the report, Prisoners of Tibet, said that “Tibetans are victims of an authoritarian government that feels free to impose arbitrary punishment on anyone who exercises basic human rights, which are guaranteed by international law and nominally protected under the Chinese constitution. Under current law and practice, Tibetans are imprisoned either through summary judicial process or an administrative detention of no longer than four years. It is virtually impossible to know the true number of political prisoners as China does not allow independent organizations to visit prisons, labour camps and detention centers on a regular and systematic basis.”
Adopted in 1957, China’s RTL system, known as laojiao in Chinese, has come under severe criticisms not only from Chinese human rights activists but also by international human rights organizations, UN human rights experts and Western governments.
In March, Amnesty International stated that the practice “is used extensively in China despite repeated calls from overseas and within China for the system to be abolished. The Beijing authorities have reportedly approved the use of RTL to target vagrants and petty criminals in their attempts to “clean up” the city before it hosts the Olympics in 2008.”
The human rights group also said that at the last session of China’s National People’s Congress a new legislation known as the “Illegal Behaviour Correction Law” (IBCL) was considered to replace RTL. However, the group noted that the draft which is not publicly available appears to fall short of international fair trial standards.
A week before the China’s rubber-stamp parliament met in March, an editorial in China Daily admitted that the current RTL system is “increasingly out of step with the country’s progress in protecting human rights”. However, the newspaper also stated that the proposed legislation has been on the parliament’s agenda for the last two years, “and the standing committee said there were still “lots of disagreements” this year”. Without elaboration, China Daily added that as many as 400,000 served the RTL system.
Manfred Nowak, the UN human rights expert on Torture, following his fact-finding mission to present-day China in 2005, reiterated calls by other UN human rights experts that China abolishes the RTL system. Nowak’s mission report concluded that: “Many prisoners serving sentences for political crimes and detainees subjected to RTL who submitted complaints to the Special Rapporteur or whom he personally met in detention, claimed that the disproportionate, discriminatory and unjust deprivation of personal liberty (often for a very long period of time) together with the forced re-education system to which they were subjected caused more severe pain and suffering than the physical torture they might have endured during interrogation by the police. Indeed, some of these measures of re-education through coercion, humiliation and punishment aim at altering the personality of detainees up to the point of even breaking their will.”
In May 2000, the UN Committee against Torture (CAT) after reviewing China’s Third Report, expressed concern about the system of administrative sanctions that permits extrajudicial custodial orders in respect of individuals that have not committed, or are not charged with, a violation of the law and urged China to “consider abolishing all forms of administrative detention, in accordance with the relevant international standards.” The Committee is now scheduled to review China’s next report in May 2008.
According to the website of the German Parliament President Norbert Lammert met yesterday with Chinese human rights activist Harry Wu to discuss the human rights situation in China. During this meeting, Lammert said that his country respects the internal affairs of other countries but adherence to fundamental human rights was an international affair. Harry Wu heads the Laogai Research Foundation which is based in Washington, D.C.
