Mother sent to detention center after visiting son in Beijing

A woman who visited her son in Beijing was sent to the reeducation-by-labor center in her hometown because police believe she submitted petitions to authorities during her stay in the capital, according to a report in the Beijing Youth Daily on Wednesday.

According to the report, the police said that the woman traveled to Beijing on four previous occasions to submit "illegal petitions" due to a land dispute with a neighbor, and they believe that she did the same last time.

Zhao Meifu, 54, a farmer from Gaolan county in Lanzhou, capital of Northwest China's Gansu province, went to Beijing on Nov 5 to see her son who is a graduate university student.

On Nov 12, she was sent to a reeducation-by-labor center in her hometown by local police, the report said.

Those who commit misdemeanors are normally placed in reeducation-through-labor centers instead of prisons.

Guo Dajun, 29, Zhao's son who is studying at the Beijing Institute of Technology, said that he managed to persuade his mother not to submit petitions while she stayed in Beijing from Nov 5 to 8, and that she mostly stayed in her hotel room during that time.

Guo said he will ask the government to release his mother as soon as possible.

A police officer in Lanzhou's public security bureau said that Zhao will be at the reeducation-through-labor center for a year.