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Monday, March 18, 2013

Reforming China’s Labor Camps

Zhao Meifu, a farmer from Gansu province, shows the papers of her labor camp detention in Beijing, March 9, 2013. Zhao had been seeking redress for decades over a land grab by village officials. Tired of her complaints, police saw the labor camp as a quick way to get rid of her. She was locked up in a long hated and often abused penal system known as labor re-education. (Andy Wong/AP)

Zhao Meifu, a farmer from Gansu province, shows the papers of her labor camp detention in Beijing, March 9, 2013. Zhao had been seeking redress for decades over a land grab by village officials. Tired of her complaints, police saw the labor camp as a quick way to get rid of her. She was locked up in a long hated and often abused penal system known as labor re-education. (Andy Wong/AP)

China’s new premier, speaking in his first press conference, says his government is preparing reforms to the country’s system of forced labor camps.

Inmates are detained without any legal process and made to undergo ‘re-education through labor.’

But the case of one woman, Tang Hui, sent to a camp last year, has galvanized public opposition to the system.

The BBC’s Damian Grammaticas reports.

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