The Sun Zhigang Incident and the Abolition of Custody and Repatriation

The Death of Sun Zhigang

Sun Zhigang, 27, from Huanggang in Hubei, had graduated from university two years earlier and in early 2003 was working for a garment company in Guangzhou. On the evening of 17 March 2003, on his way to an internet café, he was taken in by a police station in Guangzhou's Tianhe District because he was not carrying a temporary residence permit, and was then sent to the Guangzhou custody and repatriation transit station. On 18 March he was transferred to the Guangzhou treatment station for detainees, where he died on 20 March. On 18 April the forensic center of Sun Yat-sen University concluded that his death was "consistent with traumatic shock caused by extensive soft-tissue injuries," and that he had been severely beaten within the 72 hours before he died.

Media Exposure and Public Outcry

On 25 April 2003 Southern Metropolis Daily published "The Death of Detainee Sun Zhigang," by reporters Chen Feng and Wang Lei, revealing how Sun had been detained for lacking a residence permit and beaten to death at the treatment station. The report spread rapidly online and provoked a strong public reaction, with criticism aimed squarely at the custody and repatriation system in force since 1982, which allowed police and civil affairs authorities to detain "three-withouts" — people without an ID card, a temporary residence permit or proof of employment — and send them back to their places of origin.

The Three Doctors' Petition and the Criminal Trial

On 14 May 2003 three doctors of law — Yu Jiang, Teng Biao and Xu Zhiyong — submitted a proposal to the NPC Standing Committee as private citizens, invoking the provision of the Legislation Law that allows citizens to request review in writing. They asked for a review of the State Council's 1982 Measures for the Custody and Repatriation of Vagrants and Beggars in Cities, arguing that an administrative regulation restricting personal liberty conflicted with the Constitution and with the Legislation Law's principle that personal liberty may be restricted only by statute. On 9 June the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court sentenced the 12 defendants in the Sun Zhigang case at first instance: principal defendant Qiao Yanqin was sentenced to death, Li Haiying to death with a two-year reprieve, and the remaining ten to terms ranging from three years to life. A deputy chief of the Tianhe District public security bureau was removed from his post; several deputy heads of Guangzhou's public security, health and civil affairs bureaus received administrative demerits or warnings; and 20 other personnel in those systems were expelled from the Party, dismissed or removed from office.

Abolition of Custody and Repatriation

On 18 June 2003 an executive meeting of the State Council adopted the Measures for the Administration of Assistance to Vagrants and Beggars without Means of Subsistence in Cities; on 20 June Premier Wen Jiabao signed State Council Decree No. 381 promulgating them, effective 1 August, and the custody and repatriation measures, in force for more than two decades, were repealed at the same time. The new measures were based on voluntary acceptance of assistance, replacing compulsory custody and repatriation with assistance for people without means of subsistence.

Impact and Assessments

The Sun Zhigang incident is widely regarded as a landmark case in which citizens used the media and legal channels to bring about institutional change, and as an important starting point of the "rights defense movement." Official accounts stress that the new assistance measures embodied a people-centered governing philosophy that protects human rights. American legal scholar Keith Hand treats the incident as an example of evolving forms of citizen action: lawyers accelerated legal reform by leveraging media coverage and public opinion, co-opting official rule-of-law rhetoric, formulating a technical legal appeal within the system, and limiting themselves to modest goals that did not challenge fundamental state or Party interests. Notably, the NPC Standing Committee never launched a formal constitutional review in response to the three doctors' proposal; the custody and repatriation system was repealed by the State Council itself.