Laogai System

Child of Tiananmen Campaigns for Father's Release

Ti-anna Wang continues to campaign for the release of her father Wang Bingzhang, a Chinese activist who has been imprisoned for the past twelve years for traveling to China in 1989 and 1998 to help establish democratic political parties. Wang, who has lived in Canada since the early 1980s, was abducted in 2002 while on a trip to Vietnam and subsequently brought to China to face charges of espionage and terrorism. After a one-day trial, a Chinese court sentenced Wang to life in prison.

Authorities Continue to Detain Associates of Pu Zhiqiang as Crackdown Ahead of Tiananmen Anniversary Intensifies

As the crackdown against dissent ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre intensifies, authorities continue to detain individuals associated with Pu Zhiqiang, a lawyer who was arrested earlier this month after attending a small, private gathering of individuals commemorating the massacre.

Plea For Help From Chinese Prison Factory Found in Saks Fifth Avenue Bag

Locked up in a Chinese prison where he was forced to perform arduous labor, Tohnain Emmanuel Njong enclosed a note pleading for help in a shopping bag he had produced that was marked for export to an English speaking country. In the note, Tahnain declared, “We are ill-treated and work like slaves for 13 hours every day producing these bags in bulk in the prison factory.” A New York City resident discovered the cry for help after purchasing a pair of shoes from Saks Fifth Avenue that were placed in a shopping bag containing the note.

Criminal Detentions Rise Following Abolition of Re-education Through Labor

As the South China Morning Post points out, and as the Laogai Research Foundation predicted last year, Chinese authorities have increasingly relied on criminal detention and alternative forms of administrative detention to jail activists following the abolition of re-education-through-labor (RTL) in November 2013.

American University Law School Publishes LRF's Commentary on the Abolition of Reeducation-Through-Labor

American University Washington College of Law published the online version of the Laogai Research Foundation's commentary on the abolition of China's reeducation-through-labor system, which the journal published in print in December 2013. Titled "A Jail by Any Other Name," the article puts forth the argument that although the abolition of this relic of Maoist repression is a welcome development, such reform does not address the more fundamental injustice of officially sanctioned arbitrary detention that underpins the laojiao system.

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