A resolution passed in the German Parliament’s lower house has called on the Chinese regime to close its slave labour camps. (File photo, Nigel Treblin/AFP/Getty Image

A German resolution has called on the Chinese regime to close its slave labor camps, despite threats of cooling relations between the countries. The resolution was passed last Thursday by a large majority in the German parliament’s Lower House.

“The Soviet Gulag system is of the past, yet a system that is equally suppressive and inhuman is carried out against the citizens of the People’s Republic of China (PRC),” reads the resolution, drafted by members of the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU), the Free Democratic Party (FDP), the Social Democratic Party (SPD), and the Green Party.

The resolution said that many were sentenced to such camps after a “minor infraction or misdemeanor,” while others were sentenced without any legal process, including “Tibetans, Mongolians and Uighurs, and religious minorities, especially Falun Gong followers.”

It also says that the camp inmates are forced to labor in poor conditions as long as 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, often manufacturing products for export. Torture is common and suicide rates are high.

The practice of “political brainwashing” still takes place in “over 1000 prisons, labor camps, and so-called psychiatric clinics,” according to the resolution.

The resolution says the Lower House of the German Parliament “requests that the German federal government continue to condemn the conditions” in the slave labor camps and “requests that the PRC close these facilities.”

German media reported that supporters of the resolution disregarded threats from the Chinese Embassy that relations between the two countries might suffer. “The Lower House of the German Parliament does not bow to anyone’s threats,” said Lower House member Erika Steinbach, according to Berlin’s Die Tageszeitung newspaper.

Extreme human rights violations “under international law … fall under our jurisdiction, and this is by no means meddling in the internal affairs of a country,” said Lower House parliamentarian Christoph Straesser, during the debate on the resolution.

The resolution also draws attention to organ harvesting allegations addressed in a joint report on organ harvesting in China by former Canadian Secretary of State David Kilgour, and international human rights lawyer David Matas.

“An especially shocking outgrowth of this system bothered our minds over and over again during the past months—namely the thriving organ harvesting,” said Steinbach, during the debate.

To stop this practice, one of the Kilgour-Matas report’s top recommendations is that all PRC detention facilities be opened for inspections by the Red Cross or other concerned international organizations.

“The reports [of organ harvesting] we heard sound almost unbelievable,” said Thilo Hoppe from the Green Party. “We have to be extremely careful when training doctors—as there is a German-Chinese cooperation agreement in this field. We need to assure that we don’t become unwitting accomplices in the illegal organ harvesting.”

Released in July last year and revised in January 2007, the Kilgour-Matas report presents 33 points of evidence pointing to systematic organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China, calling it “a grotesque form of evil which … would be new to this planet.”

THE FULL TEXT OF THE RESOLUTION

Translated by The Epoch Times

Condemning China’s Slave Labor Camps

The Lower House of the German Parliament should conclude that:

I. The Lower House of the German Parliament declares:

The former Soviet Gulag System [a network of forced labor camps] is known as one of the most notorious and suppressive method a totalitarian regime ever used against its people in all of the world’s history. This system reached terrible heights during Stalin’s time. In the West, the atrocities that were perpetrated in these camps, became especially known through The Gulag Archipelago, a book by Nobel Laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

The Soviet Gulag system is of the past, yet a system that is similar suppressive and inhuman is carried out against the citizens of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). In the PRC, political dissidents are terrorized in a similar system called the Laogai system [slave labor camps]. More often than not, people who have committed only a minor infraction or misdemeanor are sentenced to labor camps. Affected are ethnic minorities, like the Tibetans, Mongolians and Uighurs, and religious minorities, especially Falun Gong followers. It does not stop here, in over 1,000 prisons, labor camps and so-called psychiatric clinics, which originated in and still are left-over from Mao’s time, dissidents suffer imprisonment and “political brainwashing” without having been sentenced through any legal process. The official number of prisoners is at 200,000. However non-governmental organizations estimate much higher numbers of such prisoners.

Besides being subjected to political brainwashing, prisoners in these camps are forced to do hard labor without pay for up to 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, with only 3 or 4 days off a year. The inmates, among them minors, are forced to work in factories, agricultural and mining industries. In addition to the violation of labor laws through forced labor, there are violations of labor laws that made child labor illegal. The prison and labor conditions are inhuman. Prisoners are forced to handle toxic chemicals without protective gear or are forced to work in asbestos contaminated mines, where any occupational safety law is completely ignored. Occupational safety is non-existent in these camps.

The prisoners suffer different kinds of torture. Life comes cheap and death due to undernourishment, excessive labor, exhaustion and torture is considered unimportant. Moreover, the suicide rate is high amongst prisoners.

Many former Laogai prisoners living outside of China have unsuccessfully tried to tell the West the true happenings in the labor camps (including the Laogai Research Foundation). Also, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, Professor Manfred Nowak, advised of degrading prison conditions in the Chinese Laogai labor camps after visiting China in a December 2005 released report.

The reprisals at Laogai camps are well documented. The U.S. Congress passed a resolution with a 413 to 1 vote (H. Con. Res. 294) on December 16, 2005 that condemns this inhumane camp system. Even, if Germany is interested in maintaining a constructive relationship with the PRC, the federal government may no longer remain silent over the [inhuman] conditions at the Laogai camps.

II. The Lower House of German Parliament requests that the German federal government:

1. Continues to condemn the condition in the Laogai camps and requests that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) closes these facilities and the Laogai system be addressed within the scope of the German-Chinese Constitutional State Dialogue as well as the EU-China Human Rights Dialogue.

2. Request the release of information about the Laogai system from the PRC, including the exact number of camps, exact location and the number of prisoners imprisoned in these camps.

3. Request information about products manufactured in the Laogai camps, product labels and export countries from the PRC regime.

4. In conjunction with entities involved in trading with China (for example the various Chambers of Commerce and Foreign Trade), such as German companies, they must be informed of the possibility that they are working with Chinese business partners who are in actuality disguised Laogai facilities.

5. To establish at EU-level in conjunction with applicable private sector facilities a voluntary seal of approval for each Chinese product, which do not contain any part from the Laogai camps. Additionally, in the scope of the [United Nations] global compact, develop steps that stop products produced in Laogai camps from entering the international market.

6. To further demand that the PRC government release officially the exact number of deaths in Laogai camps.

7. To demand that the PRC government allow unrestricted visits by the UN-High Commission for Human Rights, the UN Special Rapporteur and staff from the International Committee of Red Cross International Committee in all Laogai camps.

8. To initiate that the UN-Human Rights Council address the problem of the Chinese Laogai camps at length.

Berlin March 7, 2007

Volker Kauder, Dr. Peter Ramsauer and Parliamentary Party members

Dr. Peter Struck and Parliamentary Party members

Dr. Guido Westerwelle and Parliamentary Party members

Renate Künast, Fritz Kuhn and Parliamentary Party members