Rape row mom takes labor camp to court

A rape victim's mother who was sent to a labor camp for protesting at sentences handed down to the rapists is being allowed to take legal action against the camp administration in her city in central China's Hunan Province. She is seeking compensation and an apology.

Last August, Tang Hui was sentenced to 18 months in the camp after she demanded tougher penalties for the seven men convicted of abducting, raping and prostituting her then 11-year-old daughter in 2006.

She was released within a week following a string of protests from academics, state media and the public but is now seeking 1,463.85 yuan (US$235) compensation from the camp administration for infringing on her personal freedom, another 1,000 yuan for psychological damage, and a written apology.

Her lawsuit has been accepted by the Intermediate People's Court in Yongzhou, Xinhua news agency said.

Meanwhile, another victim of the labor camp system has been freed from confinement in a former mortuary after authorities announced a review of the case, China National Radio reported.

Chen Qingxia, who had been confined to one room for the past three years, is to receive physical treatment and psychological counseling in Heilongjiang Province.

In addition, government officials have launched a search for her son, Song Jide, who was just 12 when he was taken from his mother in 2007.

Chen's husband had been sentenced to one year and nine months in a labor camp for destroying public property, Xinhua news agency reported, and Chen was angry his mental state had not been taken into account when sentence was passed. She said he was suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome following a dispute with a neighbor.

After local protests proved fruitless, she traveled to Beijing in 2007 to complain.

But there, she said, government officials from her home city of Yichun separated her from her son and she hadn't seen him since. She was sent to a labor camp.

She was allowed to leave in 2010, but the local government then confined her in the former mortuary.

Chen is now in a welfare home, and government officials, who admitted mistakes had been made, have begun a search for her son.