Chinese teacher punished for quake photos

BEIJING, July 30 (UPI) -- A Chinese teacher has been punished for posting photographs of schools leveled by the Sichuan earthquake on the Internet, a human rights group said.

Human Rights in China said the teacher, Liu Shaokun, was taken into custody in late June, The New York Times reported Wednesday. His principal at Guanghan Middle School in Deyang City was told he had been "disseminating rumors and destroying social order."

Authorities told his wife this month that he had been ordered to spend a year in a labor camp for "re-education," the group said. No trial is necessary.

The government has admitted that about 10,000 of the 70,000 reported dead from the Sichuan quake in May were children killed when their schools collapsed. Immediately after the quake, authorities were open to publicity about the schools and demonstrations by parents angry over poor construction, but then began cracking down.

"Instead of investigating and pursuing accountability for shoddy and dangerous school buildings, the authorities are resorting to reeducation through labor to silence and lock up concerned citizens like teacher Liu Shaokun and others," said Sharon Hom, executive director of Human Rights in China.