Kidnapping villagers who have traveled to Beijing to lodge complaints with China's central government and keeping them in unofficial jails to silence them has evolved into a lucrative cottage industry that police refuse to crack down on, a human rights group said Thursday.
The report by New York-based Human Rights Watch on China's "black jails" is based mainly on interviews with 38 people who said they were nabbed by thugs while trying to bring grievances to the central government. ...
It blames a civil service evaluation system that uses a point system to penalize officials if too many people from their jurisdiction complain to the central government and rewards those who are able to minimize grievances. Because bonuses and promotions are linked to evaluations, it is economical for officials to pay people to intercept, detain and intimidate petitioners, it said.
Of course, this kidnapping practice makes it more difficult for the central authorities to use the complaints process statistics as an early warning system for recognizing rising discontent outside the cities.
Still, as much as some of our purported deep thinkers admire China for dictating global warming policies, you'd think this ad hoc system of off-the-books jails wouldn't count as "reasonably enlightened."
