Hong Kong Celebrates May Day With Anti-Laojiao Videos
Hong Kong celebrates May Day with anti-laojiao videos
Premiering today in Hong Kong and Taiwan, two documentaries focus on the survivors of China’s brutal ‘re-education through labour’ camps, set up by Mao to crush crime and political dissent. Old child inmates from the Dabao facility talk about eating earthworms to survive. Former prisoners from the Masanjia female camp tell a story of tortured bodies and souls.
Hong Kong (AsiaNews) - As Chinese authorities ponder scrapping the laojiao, the ‘re-education through labour’ programme that is part of the country’s penal system, two courageous documentary films were screened today in Hong Kong and Taipei showing the brutality child inmates suffered in the 60s and women still endure today.
Chinese legal experts and human rights activists have tried for years to stop the laojiao, deemed “arbitrary” and “unconstitutional” by its critics. In recent months, the government has moved in different directions on the matter. After announcing it was closing “some” facilities in two provinces, it later backtracked and is now talking about reforming the system.
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