China whistleblowers play big role in exposing official crimes

Whistleblowers in China have helped uncover more than 70 percent of all registered cases of officials' work-related crimes, the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) said Monday.

Figures from the SPP show the country's prosecutors, at all levels, received an average of more than 100,000 reports every year from whistleblowers regarding officials' work-related crimes. ' SPP deputy chief procurator Ke Hanmin said the country's various prosecutorial agencies have also established more convenient channels to collect evidence such as phone, the Internet and fax in addition to the traditional written reports and visits in person.

Last year, prosecutors across the country received a total of 315,770 phone calls through their special public hotlines from which they received 30,811 pieces of useful information on various cases.

Ke said the move was taken in accordance with "complicated anti-corruption situations."

According to Wang Xiaoxin, director of the SPP public reporting center, hotlines were set up in all 31 provincial-level regions on the mainland, serving to answer people's questions on laws and regulations and collect clues on officials' corrupt behavior.

In order to ensure public participation in the fight against corruption, the country also set up rules to reward whistleblowers according to the significance of the cases they reported or gave evidence about. The maximum is no more than 10 percent of the money confiscated in a case.

Sometimes, 100,000 yuan (14,641 U.S. dollars) or 200,000 is rewarded for a single case.

Earlier reports show China's prosecution agencies investigated 15,832 officials in the first four months of this year for work-related crimes, up 5.8 percent year on year.

Among these officials, 970 were at or above the county level, according to the SPP.

Source:Xinhua