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One man was sentenced to death, another to life imprisonment and 27 were given jail terms from 18 months to nine years yesterday for their role in the Shanxi kiln slave labor scandal.

Shanxi Provincial High People's Court officials held a televised press conference to announce the verdicts a day after 95 local Party and government officials were punished for dereliction of duty in the same scandal.

A court in Linfen in Shanxi found Zhao Yanbing, who supervised workers in a Hongtong County kiln, guilty of beating a mentally challenged laborer to death, and handed him down the capital punishment.

The kiln foreman, Heng Tinghan, who abducted 31 migrant workers and forced them to work overtime without pay, was given life imprisonment for intentionally injuring and illegally detaining them.

Kiln boss Wang Bingbing, too, was found guilty of illegally detaining the laborers, and got nine years.

In seven other cases, 26 brick kiln owners, foremen, and taskmasters were given jail terms ranging from 18 months to three years.

A foreman in Ruicheng kiln was sentenced to three years for hiring and forcing a child laborer to work overtime without pay.

Fourteen child laborers have been saved since the scandal broke out last month. Cases involving 13 other children will be heard soon, provincial court vice-president Liu Jimin told the press conference.

He said the verdicts against 12 more people charged in five other cases will be passed in a few days.

Four government officials and a police officer at the city and county levels have already been charged in one of the cases, he said. "The scandal is a blot on socialist China, which we must wipe out."

The scandal broke out after more than 400 parents appealed online to help them rescue their children who had been sold to brick kilns in Shanxi and Henan to work as forced laborers.

More than 570 people, including 41 children, have been rescued from illegal brick kilns in the two provinces, and about 160 people arrested after the central government ordered a nationwide investigation and rescue campaign.

Some law experts, however, see the punishments as "lenient" compared to the heinous nature of the crimes and severe violation of human rights and human dignity.

"The courts have failed to punish all the evil doers for their roles," said Wu Ge, chairman of human rights committee under the All-China Lawyers Association.

For instance, kiln owner Wang has evaded severe punishment for being party to the brutal treatment of the workers in his kiln, and foreman Heng has not been punished for human trafficking, including of some mentally challenged people.

"We should plug the loopholes in the Criminal Law," so that the guilty can be punished according to the nature and severity of their crimes, Wu said.

A researcher with the Institute of Labor Studies affiliated to the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, Wang Wenzhen, said the existing law should be amended to prevent similar tragedies. "Some rule-breakers are punished too leniently, and such employers are not afraid," he said.

(China Daily 07/18/2007 page1)