ABSTRACT
Excesses in the Laogai The laogai has often been a brutal institution. This is especially true in Xinjiang, where at least until very recently, many of the prison camps can hardly have been better than they were during "feudal" times. The government's insistence that all detainees and convicts have been treated in an enlightened manner does not withstand scrutiny.288 To be sure, there may be some truth to that when it comes to those few Chinese prisons which outsiders are permitted to visit, A but not to the prisons
A. For practices regarding foreign visits to prisons, see below, pp. 226,247.
