AP News, July 16th, 2007
China has punished dozens of low-level officials for allowing brick kilns to operate using slave labor, but cleared higher-ranking officials of wrongdoing and dismissed allegations of corruption, a party discipline committee member said Monday.
The Communist Party disciplined 95 officials at the county level or lower for malfeasance, said Yang Senlin, vice secretary of the Shanxi Provincial Party Discipline Inspection Committee.
Three were expelled from the party and 33 were fired, while the others were demoted or received either a warning or black marks on their records, Yang said, according to a transcript of the news conference in Shanxi posted online.
Eight officials will be criminally prosecuted, including two who were already disciplined by the party, he said. He did not elaborate.
Officials at the municipal level, which in China is higher than the county level, and above were found to be innocent of wrongdoing.
"No corruption has been found among officials in Shanxi after a careful monthlong investigation," Yang said. However, municipal-level officials had to apologize to the provincial party committee for their failed leadership.
The investigation by the provincial Communist Party lasted only a month, beginning when hundreds of parents complained that their children were being forced to work at brick kilns in northern China's Henan and Shanxi provinces. Operators, often acting with local government protection, beat, starved and forced workers to labor long hours without pay.
Last week, six men who worked as enforcers at a Shanxi province brick kiln testified at their criminal trial that they were ordered to beat "lazy" workers, who were forced to labor up to 18 hours a day.
So far, more than 30 kiln bosses and employees have gone on trial on charges that they forced workers to labor in brutal conditions and intentionally injured workers, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. No verdicts have been announced in any of the cases.
It was not known how many others, if any, face criminal charges.
Nearly 1,000 workers were released following police raids in recent months. Premier Wen Jiabao has ordered a thorough probe and punishment of kiln owners and officials who abetted their activities.
