Chinese Immigrants
Pass Anniversary
By Elaine
Kurtenbach Associated
Press Writer Wednesday,
Sept. 29, 1999; 12:39 p.m. EDT
BEIJING –– Far from the fireworks
celebrating Friday's 50th anniversary of communist rule, thousands of
migrants, street children and beggars will be languishing in dreary police
detention centers.
Police have detained millions of Chinese in "custody and repatriation"
centers that lack rudimentary sanitation and other basic needs, a human
rights group said in a report released Wednesday.
Children, the mentally ill, the homeless and others deemed unsightly or
undesirable have been crammed into the detention facilities, beaten and
forced to work long hours without pay in violation of international
treaties signed by China, said the New York-based group Human Rights in
China.
One police official acknowledged on condition of anonymity that many
people had been detained but said the number could not be made public.
Others contacted declined to comment.
The Communist Party is staging gala celebrations, including a massive
military parade, mass dances and fireworks, to mark the Oct. 1, 1949,
founding of the People's Republic.
For many Chinese, the occasion offers a welcome seven-day holiday and a
chance to enjoy streets newly refurbished and adorned with lights and
floral displays.
However, authorities fearful of unrest or other disruptions are
imposing a security vacuum of extraordinary tightness.
The government wants to make sure there are no outbursts from laid-off
workers, democracy campaigners and members of the banned Falun Gong
meditation group.
When four or five people began meditating cross-legged in Beijing's
Tiananmen Square on Wednesday, authorities pounced within seconds and
dragged them away.
Another man began doing Falun Gong-type exercises on the square about
two hours later, and two uniformed police officers and another in plain
clothes quickly came over and walked him off the square.
Falun Gong was banned by the government in July after thousands of its
followers surrounded the Chinese leaders' Beijing compound in April in a
daylong protest against official harassment of the group.
Police pried open manholes Tuesday along the parade route that
transects the Chinese capital, apparently checking for bombs, and sealed
them with shiny new padlocks.
Residents will be kept back by police cordons and traffic throughout
much of the city will be forced to a halt.
It was a rural revolution that helped bring the communists to power in
1949.
But for the millions of migrants who have flooded into Beijing and
other cities seeking higher paying jobs than can be found in the
impoverished countryside, politically sensitive times such as the prelude
to the anniversary are hazardous.
Those without legal permission to be in the cities risk being detained
under a process known as "custody and repatriation." Police sometimes
seize those with proper papers if they have an obvious accent or are
poorly dressed.
State-controlled media have said police detained more than 16,000
migrants and others lacking official papers, a formal job or a fixed abode
in Beijing this month.
The Human Rights in China report said that every year as many as 2
million people are detained under "custody and repatriation."
Up to one-fifth of those held are children. Others include the
homeless, the mentally ill, prostitutes and petitioners who traveled into
the cities to seek government help with various grievances.
The police detention centers "are often little more than holding pens
for all those whose presence on the streets of the city is deemed unseemly
or inconvenient, as well as anyone police officers decide to send there,"
the report said.
Even China's state-controlled media have reported poor conditions in
the detention centers. Independent information is scarce due to government
secrecy, but the report's findings are consistent with other descriptions
provided by former detainees, some of whom were held for political
reasons.
The report cited official publications describing many of the centers
as being in dangerous condition – filthy, damp and dark, with inadequate
ventilation.
Ostensibly welfare facilities intended to provide relief, education and
resettlement, they hold people for weeks, months, sometimes years.
Detainees aged 12 and up are required to work 12-14 hours a day,
usually without pay, and when they are released are required to pay for
having stayed there, the report said.
Beijing officials have said they intend to force half of the city's 3
million resident migrants to leave.
© Copyright 1999 The Associated Press
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