Labor
Prisoners at Qincheng Prison are tasked to perform manual labors instead of being executed in accordance with Mao Zedong's order given in 1957 in one of his speeches in which Mao explained why political prisoners must not be executed:
- 1st: If one was executed, the more would have to be executed for the same crime later on for equality, and it would difficult to spare the lives of future prisoners who committed the same crime, because justice system would be criticized as unequal, giving preferential treatments
- 2nd: Wrong people and even innocent people might be executed by mistakes
- 3rd: Executing prisoners could mean the vanishing of evidence
- 4th: When prisoners were executed, it could not increase production output, could not improve scientific research, could not strengthen national defense, and could not liberate Taiwan
- 5th: You (the Communist regime) would be accused of excessive killings
Reactionaries are evil but once captured, they could be turned to something useful for the people.
As result of this speech of Mao, prisoners at Qincheng Prison are put to work instead of being executed, and they are subjected to be assigned to tasks other than that of the Qincheng Prison to help out outside the prison. Heavy manual labor was performed only by the nationalist war criminals classified by the communists, but since the release of the last group of this kind of prisoners in 1975, there are no longer any such duties. However, light manual labors continues such as making straw hats and making boxes for matches. Jiang Qing requested and was permitted to make dolls. These light manual labor is often conducted in their own cells.
Read more about this topic: Qincheng Prison
Famous quotes containing the word labor:
“When my hoe tinkled against the stones, that music echoed to the woods and the sky, and was an accompaniment to my labor which yielded an instant and immeasurable crop. It was no longer beans that I hoed, nor I that hoed beans; and I remembered with as much pity as pride, if I remembered at all, my acquaintances who had gone to the city to attend the oratorios.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Nothing is hard for lovers, no labor is difficult for those who wish it.”
—Jerome (c. 340–420)
“The classroom, with all its limitations, remains a location of possibility. In that field of possibility we have the opportunity to labor for freedom, to demand of ourselves and our comrades, an openness of mind and heart that allows us to face reality even as we collectively imagine ways to move beyond boundaries, to transgress. This is education as the practice of freedom.”
—bell hooks (b. c. 1955)