ICC Note: China’s system of labor camps, established under Mao in the 1950’s, have been used for decades to imprison “dissidents” for up to three years without trial. Christian pastors and members of unregistered house churches have been sentenced to these camps in the past with little or no trial. One such pastor was Shi Enhao, the deputy director of the Chinese House Church Alliance, who spent nearly six months in a labor camp in 2011 before being unexpectedly released in January of 2012. 
01/08/2013 China (UCANews) – Government critics say they remain skeptical that the government will improve rights standards within the justice system, following an official announcement yesterday that labor camps would be overhauled.
State media quoted Meng Jianzhu, secretary of the Central Politics and Law Commission, saying that China would end the practice of sending people to labor camps, a policy which denies alleged offenders a trial.
Established by Mao Zedong during the 1950s and modeled on Josef Stalin’s notorious gulags in the former Soviet Union, the camps have been used to punish religious dissidents, social activists and petty thieves.
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The end of re-education through labor would make little difference to religious freedom in China, even if camps have widely been used to house religious dissidents, said an underground Catholic bishop who gave only his first name, Peter.
His seminary classmate spent three years in a camp, he said, adding that other non-trial tactics against Christians were common – he has been subjected to forced study sessions and ‘sight-seeing’ tours by officials in which threats are often made as well as spending time behind bars.
“Government officials can still put us under house arrest in guesthouses which is also outside of the legal process,” said Bishop Peter.
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