Guangdong is seeking to become the first province to close its re-education-through-labor centers if its plan is approved by the Standing Committee of National People's Congress, Yan Zhichan, deputy director of Department of Justice, Guangdong, told the Nanfang Daily.

Guangdong's labor centers will stop receiving new prisoners this year and the centers will be closed once the terms of the 18,000 current prisoners in Guangdong end, said Yan. Some 14,000 people detained in Guangdong's re-education centers are receiving compulsory treatment for drug addiction, according to Nanfang Daily.

Yan said the province is preparing a plan to deal with people who commit minor crimes within the justice system, adding that the percentage of people who really need re-education through labor is low. A person can be sent for reeducation for up to four years without a trial or appearing in the country's court system.

"There is hope that the system will be abolished nationwide in the near future," Guan Baoying, a vice president of the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, told the Global Times.

"The system violates human rights. It gives governments the power to restrict a citizen's freedom without judicial judgment," Guan said.

Public condemnation of the system reached a peak last year after several cases of people being unfairly interned made headlines and caused a tsunami of criticism on social media websites. 

Lawyer Gan Yuanchun, told the Global Times that the re-education-through-labor system must be abolished nationwide as it is being used to detain people who have not committed crimes.

"We have seen petitioners and protesters detained and then sentenced to labor camps. There is a serious abuse of power within the system," Gan said.

According to the official website of the Bureau of Re-education-Through-Labor Administration, there were about 160,000 prisoners in 350 labor centers in China in 2008.