Sun Zhigang incident
The Sun Zhigang Incident ( Chinese 孙志刚事件 ) refers to the death of the migrant worker Sun Zhigang in the city of Guangzhou in 2003. He was accompanied by China's arrest and recovery system (English Custody and Repatriation ; in short: C & R) seized and imprisoned. While in detention, Sun died as a result of physical abuse. The incident received massive media and internet coverage , with the result that the government abolished the C&R system.
The victim
Sun Zhigang (Chinese: 孙志刚; * 1976; † 2003) from Huanggang , Hubei Province , graduated from the University of Science and Technology in Wuhan (today Wuhan Textile University ). After the 2003 Chinese New Year, he went to the coastal Guangdong Province. This area is located in southern China and is economically dependent on migrant workers. Sun first found a job in Shenzhen , but later moved to Guangzhou to work for the Daqi clothing company.
Arrest and death
Sun Zhigang, 27, passed away on March 20, 2003 in a Guangzhou Prison Hospital. He was arrested after he was unable to show his residence permit and ID card during a police check. He had not even applied for a residence permit and had not carried his identity card with him. His registered address was with his family in Hubei. Sun called friends to bring him his ID.
Three days later, a friend called the family to tell them about Sun's death. An official autopsy in Zhongshan , commissioned by the family, revealed severe physical injuries that must have occurred 72 hours before his death. However, the prison hospital stated that the cause of his death was a heart attack or a stroke .
Reactions
Sun's family briefed investigative reporters for the Southern Metropolis Daily in Guangdong on April 25th. Since this happened during the SARS epidemic and the government was overloaded with censorship regarding it, news of Sun's death and the outrage of Sun's friends and sympathizers spread rapidly. Some believed that the government was censoring postings while most people expected responses from the government, but attention was focused only on the Sun incident and not on the general C&R issue.
Two groups of senior Chinese lawyers wrote to the National People's Congress . They questioned the constitutionality of C&R. A particular problem with the regulations was that while they were adopted as regulation by the State Council, they were not passed as law by Congress. One reasoning was based on the fact that the C&R regulation had to be viewed as unconstitutional, since the migrant workers' civil rights were not given. As in many other countries, Chinese law does not provide for a constitutional review by judges. And as in other non-constitutional systems (e.g. Great Britain ), the legislature or administration, rather than the judge, must change the non-constitutional laws. There have been some movements along these lines for legal reformers to use the courts and bureaucracy to experiment with constitutionalism .
A similar argument was that the C&R Regulations violated the 1996 Administrative Act, which states that administrative penalties that restrict personal freedom can only be authorized by laws passed by [full] Congress. Both reviews reflect statements made by attorneys and legal scholars in previous years.
In addition to the legal problems, there were also witness reports that the conditions of detention under the C&R system were worse than in prisons or re-education camps. This includes physical abuse and prolonged incarceration without trial. The police would also use the abduction system to extort money from family members in excess of the expenses incurred. These reports reflect the previously ignored warnings.
examination
Cheng Yizhong, editor-in-chief of Southern Metropolis Daily, and three other editors were charged with corruption related to the Sun incident and other crimes. They were accused of embezzling local state-owned companies. Human rights lawyers alleged that these actions were the revenge of local officials against journalists who advocate freedom of the press. Whatever the reason, the lawyers who defend them were able to obtain their release quickly; the penalties were reduced for the others. Human rights lawyers see the Sun and Cheng cases as a victory for the growing Weiquan movement .
In June 2003, two people directly responsible for the murder were sentenced to death; an execution is still pending. Ten other perpetrators were sentenced to six months to life imprisonment. Six officers were sentenced to two to three years' imprisonment for abuse; later a nurse was also sentenced to two years in prison. The results of the investigation were criticized because the police carried out investigations but found no culprits among their own ranks.
legacy
On June 20, 2003, Premier Wen Jiabao announced the abolition of the C&R system on August 1. The detention centers would be replaced by service centers to help poor beggars or the homeless under the new measures to support vagabonds and unsupported beggars in cities . These centers may not collect fees from their families or make them work. The Hukou system for settlement and work permits for migrant workers remains unchanged.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b 84 Days and Nights in Guangzhou , China.org.cn, July 8, 2003, accessed May 11, 2017
- ↑ Thomas E Kellogg and Keith Hand, China crawls slowly towards judicial reform , Asia Times Online, January 25, 2008, accessed June 19, 2017
- ↑ Nicolas Bequelin, Enforcing the rural-urban divide: Use of Custody and Repatriation detention triples in 10 years , February 23, 2003, accessed June 19, 2017
- ↑ Tong Yi, KIDNAPPING BY POLICE: CUSTODY & Repatriation , Human Rights in China, 2003, accessed on June 19, 2017
- ↑ a b Sun Zhigang's brutal killers sentenced , ChinaDaily, June 10, 2006, accessed June 19, 2017
- ^ Sophie Beach, Rise of Rights? , China Digital Times, May 27, 2005, accessed June 19, 2016
- ↑ Head nurse in Sun Zhigang case gets 2 years , ChinaDaily, September 30, 2004, accessed June 19, 2017
- ^ Tong Yi, Kidnapping by Police: The Sun Zhigang Case Exposes "Custody and Repatriation" , Congressional-Executive Comission on China, June 2, 2003, accessed June 18, 2017
- ↑ Beijing's Migrant Construction Workers Abused , Human Rights Watch, March 12, 2008, accessed June 15, 2017