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ISSUE
RELATED ORGANIZATIONS
Advancing
Legal Reform in China:
A collection of reports, letters,
testimony, and news releases from the Lawyers Committee
for Human Rights focusing on advancing the rule of law
in China and Hong Kong.
Amnesty
International China:
Reports and links on China.
Human
Rights in China:
Laogai
Research Foundation:
A nonprofit dedicated to compiling information and
evidence on China’s large forced labor camp system.
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND PUBLICATION LINKS:
For
the Record – China:
A list of reports presented
by China to international treaty bodies and references
to China in a host of UN reports from 1999. Produced by
Human Rights Internet in partnership with the Canadian
Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.
Wu, Hongda Harry and Ted Stingerland. Laogai: The Chinese
Gulag. Westview Press, October 1992. (pp. 247)
Laogai Handbook 1993-1998.
Yearly effort by Laogai Research Foundaton. Details Laogai
camps, location and prisoners.
Laogai Report
Laogai Research Foundation newsletter since 1993 includes
commentary, photos, and international news.
Tushi
Paidon’s Testimony:
Former Laogai prisoner Tushi Paidon’s testimony
at the Laogai Conference in Washington DC.
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Laogai, which means "reform through labor," designates the Chinese
gulag which constitutes the most extensive forced labor camp system in
the world today. The camps’ purpose is to punish and reform criminals
in a manner useful to the state. In their year 2000 report on China, Amnesty
International presented the story of Zhang Lin, a pro-democracy and labor
rights activist held in "Guangzhou No.1 Re-education Through Labour
Centre" in southern China since November 1998. Like many others in
the Laogai, Lin was reported to be in poor health as a result of repeated
beatings, torture and the abysmal conditions faced by the camps’
inhabitants. Despite his poor health, he was required to work fourteen
hours a day and was reportedly beaten when he tried to protest. Reports
also suggest that he was tortured on least six occasions, as a result
of which he twice attempted suicide. On yet other occasions, Lin has been
beaten by other inmates acting on orders from the guards, stripped of
his clothes, dragged on the ground for long distances, and had his head
held under water. In July he went on hunger strike for six days to protest
against his treatment and conditions of detention.
Today, several organizations are fighting from abroad against the system
of the Laogai in the hope of bringing a higher conscience of human rights
to China. Most prominent perhaps is the Laogai Research Foundation founded
by Harry Wu, a former detainee who spent more than twenty years as a political
prisoner in the Laogai.
Sources: Amnesty International, The Laogai Research Foundation
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