Easily Answered: Will China end prison labor camps?

No.

Here’s why she won’t end labor camp detentions:

China admits to a network of some 310 labor camps with 190,000 inmates who are forced to work, often in grueling conditions – sent there without due process or a judge.

That many people imprisoned across China are evidence of oppression China willing exercises and will not easily cease.

Here’s who goes there:

Today, the types of people who may end up in a camp for years are democracy organizers, upstart bloggers, underground church ministers, unhappy lawyers, members of the Falun Gong sect, Tibetan monks or ethnic Uighers with the temerity to protest, or those deemed too outspoken and thus threats to the “harmony” of China’s society.

But China will pretend abuses against thousands have gone away:

One concern, say longtime China justice watchers, is that Beijing may merely retool the policy on labor camps. That is, officials will create new legal measures that appear improved, but that change little – except to make it more difficult for monitors to claim or prove human rights violations.

The state that favors widespread detention will not gently embrace meaningful reform.

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