A total of 12 people guilty of beating young man Sun Zhigang to
death, received death penalties or terms of imprisonment ranging
from three years to life from Guangzhou Municipal Intermediate
People's Court Monday.
Another six civil servants in Guangzhou were also sentenced to two
to three years in prison by Tianhe and Baiyun district courts in
Guangzhou respectively, for their malpractices that were partly to
blame for the tragedy.
Sun Zhigang, an employee at the Guangzhou Daqi Garment Company from
Wuhan, capital city of Central China's Hubei Province, was beaten
to death by eight patients at a penitentiary hospital just hours
after being arrested as a vagrant for not carrying ID.
Qiao Yanqin, an employee of the hospital and the principal culprit,
was given the death sentence for planning and organizing the
beating.
Li
Haiying, another major culprit, was also given the death penalty
with a two-year suspension. Zhong Liaoguo was sentenced to life
imprisonment, while Zhou Liwei, Zhang Mingjun and Lu Erpeng got 15
years.
The remaining six culprits, including one woman, received prison
sentences ranging from three to 12 years for being accessories.
Sun's case has triggered a major debate on the validity of the
holding system and the two-decade-old Measures for Internment and
Deportation of Urban Vagrants and Beggars.
The holding measures, an administrative regulation issued by the
State Council in 1982, are currently the legal basis for
internment and deportation by public security authorities.
The measures require urban vagrants and beggars to be housed and
deported to their hometown and urge the local governments to make
proper arrangements for them.
Stirred up by Sun's case, three candidates for doctorate of laws
have written to the Standing Committee of the National People's
Congress (NPC),
the country's top legislature, appealing for an investigation of
Sun's case and a review of the constitutionality of the
measures.
The Law on Legislative Procedure stipulates that any provisions
concerning deprivation of the human rights and democratic rights of
citizens must be made in the form of laws by the NPC or its
standing committee. In other words, the State Council does not have
the power to deprive such rights with administrative
regulations.
Later, five prominent legal scholars backed up the three students
by calling for the launch of special investigation into the case
and the status quo of the holding system itself and its
enforcement.
(China Daily June 10, 2003)