Criminal suspects shamed in NW China

Two men suspected of plotting a gold store robbery were forced on a perp walk in a county in Northwest China's Shaanxi province on May 13, prompting outcry over its legality.

The tied-up pair, one half naked and masked, had their names and "robbers" written on plates slung to their necks as they were escorted by armed police around a square in Luonan County in front of a crowd of hundreds. A high-ranking police official read their crimes aloud.

The pair, Yang Longfei and Yang Ke, have both confessed during police questioning to the crimes of robbing a gold store and taking valuable belongings worth more than 600,000 yuan (US$95,160) on the afternoon of May 9. Police have not filed charges against them.

It is not the first time Shaanxi police have put criminal suspects on a shaming parade. On November 25, 2008, police in Fugu County took three men who were suspected of homicide to the streets.

According to some legal specialists, the police are abusing their power.

"How can the police declare they are guilty on their own, hurt them physically, sling them with plates and force them on a shaming parade before they are convicted by the court," said Zhao Dongwei, a Beijing-based lawyer on Weibo on Sunday. "They (the police) just wanted to show off their achievement but this is an unconstitutional and illegal case."

The legal limbo somehow allows the occurrence of the shaming parades, according to Hong Daode, a professor at China University of Political Science and Law.

"There is no law or regulation, not even the revised Criminal Procedure Law, that clearly forbids bringing suspects or criminals (death row excluded) on street parades," said Hong in a telephone interview with China Daily website on Monday morning. "But we don't encourage what Shaanxi did to the suspects because it harms human rights."

On March 14, 2012, at the 5th session of the 11th National People's Congress, China's top legislature adopted the latest revision to the Criminal Procedure Law that aimed at further protecting the rights of suspects in custody and preventing forced confessions. It will take effect on January 1, 2013.

Hong said the only way of ending the shaming parades of suspects and criminals is to expect the superior court and the superior procuratorate as well as the Ministry of Public Security to make a temporary regulation and endeavor to establish a formal legal process in the future.