Published by: World Tibet Network News Tuesday, September 30, 1997

BEIJING, Sept 29 (AFP) - A senior Chinese judicial official issued a staunch defence Monday of the country's notorious labour re-education system, which has detained some 2.5 million Chinese without trial -- many of them dissidents -- since 1957.

Jiang Jinfang, a division chief with the Bureau of Re-education Through Labour said the labour camps had played "an important role" in maintaining public order since their inception 40 years ago.

Under Chinese law, being sentenced to a re-education through labour camp is considered an "administrative" rather than a "criminal" penalty.

The distinction is important as it allows public security organs to sentence individuals up to a maximum three-year term in the camps without any judicial trial.

According to Jiang, the sytem acts to pre-empt serious criminal activity.

"Many wrongdoers have been halted on the verge of committing crimes and prevented from going further along the road of violating laws through the mechanism," he was quoted as saying by the China Daily.

There are currently some 230,000 inmates serving terms in 280 labour camps throughout China, Jiang said, adding that the vast majority had committed relatively minor offences such as gambling, theft and prostitution.

However, numerous political dissidents have also been sent to the camps, which came into being during the 1957 "anti-rightist" campaign -- the first major crackdown on liberal tendencies launched by the Communist Party since coming to power in 1949.

Veteran dissident and professor of scientific history, Xu Liangying, recently described the camps as "the most backward phenomenon in the Chinese legal system."

"Thanks to the system, the Public Security Bureau can do what it likes with people's fate," Xu said.

Jiang, by contrast, said the importance and efficacy of the camps was borne out by a recidivism rate of less than 10 percent.

He also stressed that the work time and work intensity imposed on the camp inmates was "lower than the social average."

A number of prominent Chinese dissidents are currently serving terms in the labour camp system.

Liu Xiaobo, 40, a literary critic, was sentenced to three years last October after calling for a dialogue between the Chinese government and exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

Labour activist Liu Nianchun, arrested in 1995 and sentenced to three years, had his term stretched by another six months because of his "bad attitude and lack of remorse."

Another dissident, Chen Longde, broke his right leg when he threw himself from the second floor of a camp last year while trying to flee from camp guards.

Chen, 40, is serving a three-year term for calling for the freeing of political prisoners and an investigation into the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.