The Laogai Museum is a museum in

Dupont Circle Dupont Circle (or DuPont Circle) is a traffic circle, park, neighborhood and historic district in Northwest Washington, D.C. The Dupont Circle neighborhood is bounded approximately by 16th Street NW to the east, 22nd Street NW t ...

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, which showcases

human rights in the People's Republic of China Human rights in mainland China are periodically reviewed by the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC), on which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and various foreign governments and h ...

, focusing particularly on '' Láogǎi'', the Chinese prison system of "Reform through Labor". The creation of the museum was spearheaded by

Harry Wu Harry Wu (; February 8, 1937 – April 26, 2016) was a Chinese-American human rights activist. Wu spent 19 years in Chinese labor camps, and he became a resident and citizen of the United States. In 1992, he founded the Laogai Research Fou ...

, a well-known

Chinese dissident This list consists of activists who are known as Chinese dissidents. The label is primarily applied to intellectuals who "push the boundaries" of society or criticize the policies of the government. Examples of the former include Wei Hui and Jia ...

who himself served 19 years in ''laogai'' prisons; it was supported by the

Yahoo! Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Manage ...

Human Rights Fund. It opened to the public on 12 November 2008, and Wu's non-profit research organization (the

Laogai Research Foundation The Laogai Research Foundation is a human rights NGO located in Washington, D.C, United States. The foundation's mission is to "gather information on and raise public awareness of the Laogai—China's extensive system of forced-labor prison camp ...

) calls it the first museum in the United States to directly address the issue of human rights in China.

Overview

The Chinese penal system includes numerous components such as prisons (formerly referred to as ''laogai''),

re-education through labor Re-education through labor (RTL; ), abbreviated ''laojiao'' () was a system of administrative detention on Mainland China. Active from 1957 to 2013, the system was used to detain persons who were accused of committing minor crimes such as pet ...

or ''laojiao'' camps, ''

ankang Ankang () is a prefecture-level city in the south of Shaanxi Province in the People's Republic of China, bordering Hubei province to the east, Chongqing municipality to the south, and Sichuan province to the southwest. History The sett ...

'' mental health facilities, and juvenile detention centers. p. 16. The Laogai Museum focuses mainly on the ''laogai'' component, which Wu's non-profit research organization calls "the most extensive system of forced labor camps in the world.". Prisoners in these camps are said to undergo

forced labor Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, violence including death, or other forms of ex ...

and thought reform, and the system has attracted widespread criticism from the international community. In 1994, the government abandoned the term ''laogai'' and renamed the facilities "prisons" (''jianyu''), but the Laogai Research Foundation and others claim that forced labor continues and prison conditions have not improved. Translated from Chinese, original source was The purpose of the Laogai Museum, according to Wu, is both to educate the public about the ''laogai'' and to memorialize the victims of the ''laogai''. The museum documents the "history and structure of the ''laogai''," and displays ''laogai''-related materials such as uniforms, photographs, government documents, and products manufactured by prisoners—including such items as Christmas lights, tea bags, and plastic flowers; many of the items were donated by ''laogai'' survivors, and others come from Wu's own archives. The museum also has a large archive of prison-made products, victims' testimonies, and Chinese government documents. The museum appeared to have closed in early 2017 following the death of its founder in April 2016, who had been criticised for excessive spending on the museum, rather than on human rights activists themselves. The museum reopened in October 2018.

Funding

The museum was funded in part by the Yahoo! Human Rights Fund, a fund established by

after the company attracted criticism for helping Chinese police locate and detain internet dissidents. The fund, headed by Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang was part of Yahoo!'s apology, and funding the museum was one of its first public projects.

Criticism

A spokesman for the Chinese embassy has criticized the museum, calling it an attack on China's reputation and suggesting that Wu's motivation behind opening the museum was "to vilify the Chinese legal system and mislead the American public." In response, Wu said that the Chinese authorities "always dismiss me as a morally corrupt and dangerous criminal. Their second argument is that criminals have to work in some American prisons, too. But I can tell you that it's not the same thing at all."

References

External links

Laogai Museum

Voice of America Covers Opening of Laogai Museum (video)

News relating to Laogai Museum
from ObserveChina {{Coord, 38.9067, -77.0276, display=title 2008 establishments in Washington, D.C. Museums established in 2008 History museums in Washington, D.C. Prison museums in the United States Political repression in China Penal system in China