China tries to stop the public shaming of suspects

Beijing - Public shaming for suspects is a old tradition in China. But the government is calling for an end to this practice, after the Chinese public showed its outrage.

The Chinese government is calling for an end to the public shaming of criminal suspects, a time-honored, but increasingly hated, practice of Chinese law enforcement. China's state-run media reports that the Ministry of Public Security has ordered the police to stop parading suspects in public and is instead calling on local police departments to enforce laws in a “rational, calm and civilized manner.” The New York Times reports that the new regulations are believed to stem from the public's negative response to a string of "shame parades". The latest incident which happened just last month was in the southern city of Dongguan, where a group of young Chinese girls accused of being prostitutes, were shackled, barefoot and paraded in front of the public. The police, when asked about the incident, said this was not punishment for the women, just a way for them to seek help in their pursuit of an investigation. Last October, police in Henan Province went on the Internet and posted photographs of women who were suspected of being prostitutes. Other cities have published the names and addresses of convicted sex workers and those of their clients. The public response from the Internet, consists of outrage, with many postings expressing sympathy for the women.

“Why aren’t corrupt officials dragged through the streets?”

And another

“These women are only trying to feed themselves.”

But most of the anger is at the police, a focus of growing Chinese mistrust. Although police corruption is rife in China, the negativity has been heightened by a series of widely publicized episodes involving the torture of detainees, suspects who mysteriously died in custody and innocent people jailed on trumped-up evidence. Then there was a widely disseminated story about a man who spent 10 years in prison for murder after the police extracted his confession, only to be freed when his supposed victim turned out to be alive. Mao Shoulong, a professor of public policy at People’s University in Beijing, says the new regulations are necessary to put some controls on the police.

“There are more modern tools for law enforcement. Besides, if these kinds of tactics are allowed, the police will get used to dealing with problems outside of the law.”

Public shaming of those who are accused and the condemned has been going on for a long, long time in China. It was embraced by the Communist Party during episodes of class struggle and anti-crime crusades. Although there are no longer any public executions in China, provincial cities still hold mass sentencing rallies, during which convicts wearing confessional placards are driven though the streets in open trucks. There seeds of public shaming are also growing in some Chinese neighborhoods of New York City. Some supermarket owners have begun to threaten to post the pictures of shoplifters and call the police unless the suspects hand them cash, sometimes they are demanding hundreds of dollars. The legality of such behavior, however, remains a question. It is not clear at all whether this directive will do the job. Similar rules and regulations have been passed down through the years, beginning in 1988, when the Supreme People’s Court ordered prosecutors and the police to protect the identities of the accused. In 2007, the country’s top judicial and law enforcement bodies issued a similar notice that forbade the parading of convicts. Even if such rules will have to be issued repeatedly, Joshua Rosenzweig of the human rights group, Dui Hua Foundation, said he was somewhat encouraged that the government felt the need to abolish such practices.

“Repetition can increase pressure and help force change, but ultimately it will take a great deal of political will to implement these kinds of changes."