China punishes teacher for quake photos
A rights group said today that a Chinese teacher who posted pictures online of schools that collapsed when a massive earthquake hit Sichuan province in May has been sent to a labour camp for a year.
Human Rights in China said Liu Shaokun had been ordered to serve a year of “re-education through labour” – a system that side-steps the need for a criminal trial or a formal charge.
It said in a statement that Mr Liu, a teacher at Guanghan Middle School in Deyang city, was detained on June 25 for “disseminating rumours and destroying social order”. His wife was told one week ago that he had been sent to a labour camp.
The May 12 earthquake killed nearly 70,000 people, including thousands of children who died when their shoddily built schools collapsed. The issue has become a sensitive political issue for the country’s government, with parents of dead children staging protests demanding investigations. In recent weeks they have also been subjected to intimidation and financial inducements to silence them.
“Instead of investigating and pursuing accountability for shoddy and dangerous school buildings, the authorities are resorting to re-education through labour to silence and lock up concerned citizens like teacher Liu Shaokun and others,” said Human Rights in China Executive Director Sharon Hom.
The group said Mr Liu’s family has not been able to see him since he was detained.
An official at the Communist Party’s propaganda office in Guanghan said he had not heard of the case. He would give only his surname Tang as is common among Chinese bureaucrats.
Another official with the general office of the Guanghan school said Mr Liu had been working there since 2002.
“He was detained late last month by people from national security bureau for deliberately inciting families of victims to petition and disseminating anti-government rumours. They searched his home and found evidence,” said the official, who refused to give his name.
The reeducation-through-labour system has been widely criticised by the United Nations, the European Union and other organisations, who say it should be abolished as part of Beijing’s acceptance of international legal norms.
The system, in place since 1957, allows police to incarcerate a crime suspect for up to four years. Critics say it is misused to detain political or religious activists, and violates suspects’ rights.
