'Tiger Bench' And Other Horrific Torture Methods Reportedly Used At Chinese Work Camp

Under current laws, Chinese citizens can be sent without trial to a labor camp -- known as laojiao, or "reeducation-through-labor"-- for up to three to four years. While the system was developed in the 1950s for political prisoners, its scope has widened in recent years and it is now often used to punish relatively minor offenses -- Hong Kong University legal scholar Fu Hualing has noted that the term laojiao "is elastic enough to include most, if not all, offenses." The opaque system may well b...