Have petitions to make in China that involve the public security departments? Meet heads of public security bureaus in person and talk directly with them.

Such treatments are surely easy to come by now. China's Ministry of Public Security formally promulgated and put into effect a set of regulations Thursday that asked heads of public security bureaus of county and prefecture levels to "regularly meet petitioners and personally handle problems raised by the petitioners".

The regulations, which also contain other articles, in general aim to expedite the making and processing of petitions, effecting improvement in these fields in compliance with instructions of the central government to attach importance to and handle petitions well.

China's State Council, the cabinet, amended a set of state-level regulations concerning petitions earlier this year. Analysts say the Chinese government is determined to introduce reform to this sector to better address social complaints, which could threaten social stability and social harmony if left unattended.

As their problems are not properly addressed, petitioners often spend days and nights at the gates of government organs or influential media organizations. There are also cases of desperate petitions resorting to extreme measures to dramatize their plights.

The public security departments, which confronted a big pileup of petitions, launched a campaign to expedite the handling of complaints from May to September this year.

In this drive, the ministry ordered heads of public security bureaus of county and prefecture levels to "meet all the petitioners in person and ensure all the petitions are addressed in line with law".

Since the campaign was officially inaugurated on May 18, more than 3,600 public security bureaus at county and prefecture levels had received 185,000 petitions by the end of Aug. 17, according to statistics of the ministry.

"Of these petitioners, 88 percent have approved of the handling of their petitions by the public security bureaus and stopped making further petitions on the same issues," said an official with the ministry.

These petitions also provided critical clues and expedited the cracking of 16,000 criminal cases, he said.

In this campaign, heads of county and prefecture levels of public security bureaus have wrapped up their job of meeting all the petitioners in person at the order of the ministry.

From Aug. 18, heads of provincial public security departments will begin to do the same thing in line with the order.

Source: Xinhua