China Investigates Case of Forced Labor Education, Xinhua Says

Central China’s Hunan province will probe a case in which a petitioning mother was sent to labor camp, Xinhua News Agency said, citing Liu Xianhua, head of the investigation team of the provincial Communist Party Political and Legislative Affairs Committee.

Tang Hui, 39, of Yongzhou city, was sentenced to 18 months of labor re-education on Aug. 2 for publicly voicing dissatisfaction with the handling of a trial involving the kidnap, rape and forced prostitution of her then 11-year-old daughter in 2006, Xinhua said, citing the local public security bureau.

While Tang had sought death penalty for all seven people charged, the provincial court in June sentenced two of them to be executed, Xinhua said. Tang’s case attracted more than 700,000 posts on Sina’s Weibo, China’s Twitter-like social network, with most of them expressing sympathy for her and appealing for justice, Xinhua said.

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: William Bi in Beijing at wbi@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Joshua Fellman at jfellman@bloomberg.net