State-run magazine details Chinas secret detention network

In a rare dose of candor that contradicts past official statements,a state-run magazine has published an article that details a secret network...

In a rare dose of candor that contradicts past official statements,a state-run magazine has published an article that details a secret network of detention centers used to prevent aggrieved citizens from lodging complaints against the Chinese government.

Liaowang,or Outlook,a dependably stodgy publication aimed at Communist Party bureaucrats and policymakers,ran an expose on Tuesday laying out the Byzantine network of interceptors,guards and holding pens used to put off the petitioners who flock to Beijing in the hope that the authorities will resolve longstanding grievances,many of them involving official corruption in their hometowns.

According to the report,which was also published online by the official Xinhua news agency,those grabbed off the street often have their cell phones and identification confiscated before being locked away in guesthouses or dank basements. After being held for days or weeks,inadequately fed and sometimes beaten,they are shipped back to their home provinces with the admonition that they stay away from the capital.

At peak times,the article said,as many as 10,000 retrievers those paid by local officials to keep petitioners from successfully filing their complaintsroam Beijing in search of quarry. The report counted 73 secret detention centers,many of them run by regional governments,and laid out in detail the lucrative business of retrieving,detaining and sending home petitioners. The magazine described it as a chain of grey industry. Such a system of extralegal detention,sometimes called black jails,damages the legitimate rights of petitioners and seriously damages the governments image,the article said.

Although the right to petition the authorities is enshrined in the Constitution,it is frequently swallowed up by the reality of contemporary Chinas system of governance: local officials,facing pressure to maintain social stability,are penalised for allowing complainants to find their way to offices of the Central government.