Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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 Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2009 3:09 pm Post subject: Chinese Corruption Cuts Deep |
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Dark Days for China's Whistleblowers
Selected excerpts below
| Sun Wu Kong wrote: |
An online opinion poll conducted by state-run website chinanews.com before the March 5-13 annual session of the National People's Congress (NPC) found that 75.5% of 48,341 respondents ranked corruption and cleaner government as their top concern.
33,546 corruption cases were under investigation for 2008, involving 41,179 officials. The figure is only slightly less than the average of 35,681 cases and 41,587 officials investigated each year in the 2003-07 period. However, the number of serious cases has soared to 20,805, representing 62% of the total.
But the Chinese public remains hesitant to tip off authorities on official corruption, despite their growing anger at the issue.
A survey published last week by the national newspaper China Youth Daily found that only 40.1% of respondents felt obliged to report suspected corruption, while some 31% did not. Some 36.4% of the people polled said they did not think their tip-offs would be taken seriously, while 34.9% were worried about repercussions.
Fear of retribution is a major concern for whistleblowers. "Nine of the top 10 anti-graft fighters in the past three decades have faced retaliation," He Zengke, director of the Institute of Contemporary Marxism under the CCP's Central Compilation and Translation Bureau, told China Youth Daily.
The China Youth Daily survey showed that the public prefers reporting corruption on the Internet (35.5%) or through traditional media (31.3%), to reporting to CCDI (17.2%), public prosecutors (11.4%), higher-level governments (3.3%) or police (0.5%).
He Zengke blamed this on the lack of legal protection for witnesses and informants, and has appealed for better legislation.
True as this may be, laws are not worth the paper they are written on if they cannot be implemented. There are ample laws and regulations regarding official corruption, but right now corrupt officials seem to simply be filling the gap left by fallen comrades. |
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