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CONDOLATE GENERAL 17.
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14.
things. One goes with the other; if you want to have people using their brains to improve the economy, they are also going to start thinking about improving their living standard, their right to discuss issues, debate, and so on, you can't separate one from the other.
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Mr Sidoti: One explicit example of what I think is a very encouraging sign of what is possible rather than what is happening at the moment. One of the areas of greatest concern about the Chinese criminal system is its administrative detention systems; re-education through labour, or laojiao. This is a system whereby people can be detained, initially for a period of three years, possibly four, and possibly renewed, simply on the basis of a decision by the committee that acts anonymously with no due process or legal rights at all. And of all the aspects of the Chinese criminal system, clearly that's one that is of most concern to anybody who is used to a legal system with legal process. The evidence that we have it's piecemeal but the evidence that we have would tend to indicate that laojiao is being used much less now than it has been in the past. Certainly, there was an increasing sensitivity amongst the Chinese officials that we talked to, about this whole system. Almost, at time, an unwillingness from any particular agency to own up to being responsible for running the system - a fair bit of buck-passing and duck-shoving. The sensitivity, I think, is one bit of evidence, but also when we start looking at whatever numbers are available, it does seem that there is a movement away from this form of anonymous indefinite detention to a more legally-based system. And I see that as being, not necessarily a reflection of some overnight improvement in Chinese human rights, but rather as an encouraging sign that movement is starting to occur.
Mr Russell: We were also told, as well, that that system, that laojiao system is not used, and we were told this quite adamantly, that it is not used for political offences of any description, purely for minor civil offences.
Dr Rigby: Can I just make one point in relation to your question. A comment was made yesterday that was very interesting, by an academic but in open discussion which included officials, that of course there are cases where it is appropriate for one country to make comments about the human rights situation in other countries, and this academic adduced the example of criticism by Mao Zedong of the treatment of blacks in the United States in the Sixties, and said, "Look, this is quite appropriate", and she gave this as an example. That then of course led on to a long discussion about when such comments may or may not be appropriate and what was and was not the truth. The position being that if you are going to make a comment then it should obviously be based on truth, and what is truth and
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