"The world has resoundingly condemned the atrocities of the Nazi concentration camps, the Soviet Gulag, and many other systems of repression around the globe, but has remained largely silent on one of the most extensive and repressive prison camp system in the world: the Chinese Laogai. Since the early 1950s, China has used the Laogai to crush dissent and root out potential sources of opposition, whether political, economic, or religious in nature, while simultaneously exploiting prisoners as a source of free labor."
The Laogai Research Foundation
The renowned Chinese human rights activist Wei Jingsheng, who was deported to the United States in 1997 on medical parole, has been addressing the European Parliament about the worsening human rights situation in China. Here is an extract of Wei´s speech:
- The human rights situation in China "has been rapidly deteriorating" because, among other things, "the United States and European countries reduced pressure against the Chinese government." This will "bring an even more extensive disaster than the human rights affairs alone," said the great Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng who on Wednesday spoke before the European parliament about the current situation in China.
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The third is the strengthening of repression of ordinary citizens by the Chinese government under the so-called "maintaining stability" excuse. The Communist Party has employed a large number of non-professional thugs to cooperate with the police, using violence to suppress protests and the redress of grievances by individual and collective activities. Several million cases of such crackdowns are occurring each year, resulting in the expenditure for "maintaining stability" being more than military spending.
The fourth is the repression of the rights defending workers and lawyers. Lawyers often get their licenses revoked and are even put into prison, because they took cases that an official or officers do not like. Just like other rights defending workers, lawyers are not only pressured by the officials, but also receive pressure and violation from thugs from the Chinese Mafia or pretend to be the Mafia.
The fifth is the Mafia style of the law enforcement agencies in China. In the past two decades, the judiciary under the control of the Communist Party more and more has used illegal means to handle cases. Torture for confessions and fabrication of evidence has been a common phenomenon. The Attorney Li Zhuang case in Chongqing from three years ago is a typical case. In a common language used by judicial officers, it was called "using the technical means". Especially in dealing with political cases, using illegal means of the Mafia has become the practice of the judiciary. The recent questionable death of Li Wangyang also proves the general view of the mafia style of the judiciary.
The sixth is the legalization of illegal means. In order to increase the efficiency of repression and maintenance of stability, many illegal means have been legalized. Take the example I mentioned in my testimony to the U.S. Congress on May 15, 2012. In 1994, illegal detention could only be approved within the police department, and was not recognized by the prosecutors and courts in China. But this kind of illegal detention has been extended gradually nationwide in the past a decade or more. Recently, the National People's Congress in its new Code of Criminal Procedure has recognized this illegal detention as legitimate. This declared legitimacy indicates that the means of gangs and Fascism are legalized step by step.
It is all fine and well that the European Parliament gave Wei Jingsheng a chance to speak out about the gross human rights violations in his home country. On the other hand, all this can be seen as mere window dressing, when one considers that the authoritarian communist party apparachiks now in charge of the brutal regime in China are feted like royals when travelling in Europe, and the West in general.
This is e.g. how Hu Jintao, the "Paramount leader of the People's Republic of China", was welcomed by the Queen of Denmark in Copenhagen recently:
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