Closure of China labour camps brings little solace to former prisoners in Chongqing

For Ren Jianyu and others like him, the abolition of the notorious system of re-education through labour, or laojiao, is no cause for celebration.

As the country welcomed the end of the half-century-old system announced by leaders as the Communist Party’s third plenum wrapped in Beijing last week, there was little joy for many victims still rebuilding their lives.

“The municipal government still thinks people like me are the major targets of ‘stability maintenance’,” said Ren, a labour camp victim from Chongqing who is now an online retailer, referring to the state internal security system to counter dissent and civil unrest.

“Most of our lives have been ripped apart by our time in the camps,” Ren said.

To their friends, 26-year-old Ren and his girlfriend were high school sweethearts who developed committed relationship. Both graduated from university and had stable jobs – Ren as a village official and his girlfriend a school teacher. So when their lives exploded on August 18, 2011, no one could quite believe it.

On that summer day, Ren was sent without trial to a Chongqing labour camp for posting “subversive” microblog comments including on about “dedicating” himself to “the realisation of democracy”. Police found him guilty based on the evidence of a T-shirt found in his closet with a slogan coined by the 18th century American “founding father” Patrick Henry: “Give me liberty or give me death.”