Deadbeats Denied Seats on Airliners, Sleeper Trains

(Beijing) — About 3.6 million people who have refused to meet their financial obligations to landlords, banks, employees and their own children have been barred from air travel and sleeper trains.

The number of indebted deadbeats who are blacklisted as of Jan. 1 appeared in a white paper on human rights protection and the judicial system that was released Monday by the Information Office of the State Council, China's cabinet.

The travel restrictions, enforced by transportation agencies in cooperation with judicial authorities, cover all domestic and international flights as well as conventional and high-speed rail travel. The restrictions for every person on the list will last until all the person's debts are cleared.

No one blacklisted may buy a sleeper-car rail ticket, nor a business or first-class seat on a bullet train. A deadbeat may, however, buy general passenger tickets.

Debtors covered by the rule include employers who stiffed migrant laborers, such as urban construction workers from rural areas, and divorced parents who refuse to pay child support.

The white paper also shed light on the Chinese judiciary's efforts to clear the names of thousands of people who were wrongly accused or convicted of various crimes.

For example, the report said, courts overturned nearly 3,400 convictions between 2012 and 2015. And prosecutors around the country refused to accept police recommendations for the arrests of nearly 131,700 detainees.

Prosecutors also dropped all charges filed against 25,778 detainees in 2015 on grounds of insufficient evidence, according to the white paper.

The report was released in the wake of media coverage of several high-profile wrongful convictions that led to executions and long prison sentences.

Contact reporter Li Rongde at (rongdeli@caixin.com); editor Eric Johnson at ericjohnson@caixin.com