Public parade of suspects outlawed

• Source: Global Times
• [02:18 July 27 2010]
• Comments

For and against

Public opinion seems to be split over the incident. The Wuhan-based news portal changjiangtimes.com reported that some local residents applauded the exposure, with one surnamed Liu saying, "Sex workers should be ashamed of their behavior. Revealing their names is nothing improper and people should look down upon them."

Another man, surnamed Jiang, claimed that the police were right to reveal the information because such a warning is a benefit to the whole society, according to a People's Daily report.

But Li Sulan, a native of Liaoning Province, disagrees, saying citizens have the right to learn the identities of criminals, but the only case in which public exposure is acceptable is for prisoners who have been sentenced to death.

The attempt to expose offenders as a punishment is a long-held practice in China, which can be traced back to hundreds of years ago when criminals who had been sentenced to death would be paraded in the street and exposed to the public, to warn people not to break the law.

But public voices against the practice seem to be overwhelming.

According to an online vote on huanqiu.com on July 17, among the 46,689 participants, 38.8 percent, or 18,123 people, supported the real-name exposure of sex workers who are arrested, while 56.4 percent, or 26,326 people, voted against it.

Mo Shaoping, a human rights lawyer, told the Global Times that the actions of Dongguan police were against the law, as people's basic human rights should be protected, even though they may have committed crimes.

Such cases reveal that local police lack the ability to enforce the law properly and that they do not show respect for people, he added.

"Such a parade is no different to those in ancient China, which is a backward aspect of society," Liu Yang, a Beijing resident, told the Global Times. "And if criminals should be exposed to the public, why not expose corrupt officials?"

Ye Haiyan, founder of China Grassroots Women's Rights Center, told the Global Times that the statement by the Ministry of Public Security shows progress in acknowledging the human rights and privacy of sex workers in China.

"The parade has violated the privacy of the criminal suspects and will directly cut off their route to be re-assimilated into society and rebuild a new life," she said.

Parading criminal suspects, including sex workers, has no legal grounds, she said, adding that the legitimate rights and privacy of sex workers must be well protected within law enforcement.

There are no laws but only administrative measures with which to regulate the insult of criminal suspects, according to Mo.

As recently as 1980, Criminal Procedure Law of the country forbade the diffusion of the identities of those sentenced to death.

In 1988, the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Ministry of Public Security of China released a notice forbidding the exposure of suspected criminals or those awaiting trial.

Song Shengxia and Liu Linlin contributed to this story