For people who saw the event on television earlier this month, the scene was like a chilling blast from a past that is 30 years distant. Social outcasts and supposed criminals -- in this case or so prostitutes and a few pimps -- were paraded in front of a jeering crowd, their names revealed, and then driven away to jail without trial. The act of public shaming was intended as the first step in a two-month campaign by the authorities in the southern city of Shenzhen to crack down on prostitution.
But the event has prompted an angry nationwide backlash, with many people making common cause with the prostitutes over the violation of their human rights and expressing outrage in one online forum after another. So-called rectification campaigns, or struggle sessions, like these were everyday occurrences during the Cultural Revolution, which officially ended in In that benighted era, popular justice was meted out and so-called class enemies were publicly beaten, then forced to make confessions and sent to camps for re-education.
That this event took place in Shenzhen, the birthplace of China's economic reforms and one of its richest and most open cities, seems to have added to its shock value. It was reported that the All China Women's Federation had sent a letter expressing its concerns to the Public Security Ministry in Beijing, but later denied having done so.
At least one lawyer has stepped forward to defend the prostitutes, citing legal reforms in that banned acts of public chastisement.
While voices condemning the behavior of the city and its police force were the most energetic, some spoke up in support of the crackdown. In recent years the Internet has served as an important barometer of the public mood in China, and increasingly it functions as an outlet for criticism. Instead of jumping on the bandwagon against prostitution, which is illegal but omnipresent in China, many commentators aimed their criticisms at the government for its hypocrisy in not acting against the rich underworld that operates the sex trade or even arresting the prostitutes' customers.
