China’s labor camps close, but grim detention conditions linger

(Washington Post) For the first few weeks, Shen Yongmei was told to sit on a rough plastic stool from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., her back absolutely straight, her hands on her knees, and stare in silence at three sentences painted on a wall.

“What is this place? Why are you here? What attitude are you going to employ to comply with the police?” were the three questions the 55-year-old woman was told to contemplate. Any slackening of concentration invited a beating.

Then, her brain supposedly washed clean of disobedient thoughts, she was sent to work. For months, she screwed in the plastic plugs at the end of ballpoint pens, working with only brief food and bathroom breaks as she fulfilled her daily quota of 12,000 pens.

This was “reeducation through labor” program China’s way of reforming minor offenders — drug users and petty criminals — as well as government critics and people regarded by police as a nuisance.

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