A week ago, the police in Shenzhen, the boomtown across from Hong Kong, made a series of vice raids. They arrested 167 prostitutes and their clients, then paraded them through the streets before thousands of bystanders in public humiliation. Police dressed the prostitutes in bright yellow and gave them surgical masks to cover their faces a bit.

The objective was obvious: This was a “vice parade,” a walk of shame.

Police said it was a public trial. They read out the names, addresses and ages of all those arrested. Each was given 15 days of “administrative detention,” according to Xinhua. Click here and here to see the photos and read state media reports in English.

It might seem a stretch to link this event with rule-of-law issues in China. But there is a link. The story didn’t just fade away. A variety of people are seeking legal redress, and Shenzhen is feeling the heat. The South China Morning Post reports this morning that some police who carried out the raid “may face disciplinary punishment” amid an outcry that the vice parade was a human rights violation.

The paper notes that the party-linked All-China Women’s Federation filed a formal protest with the Ministry of Public Security last Friday, asserting that the vice parade was “an insult to all women in China.”

Today’s China Daily reports that a Shanghai lawyer submitted a petition to the rubber-stamp National People’s Congress saying the vice parade was “illegal, inhumane and ineffective.” 

In rather incisive criticism, the lawyer, Yao Jianguo, noted that a law ratified only last August, the Law of Punishment in Public Order and Security, says that police should protect and respect citizens’ human rights and self-esteem, and had no right to announce a punishment without a proper legal procedure.

The paper added this: “The public parade does not send a warning to other criminal suspects,” said Yao, adding it only humiliates the suspects and is likely to induce anti-government sentiment.

China has passed such laws. Now, some citizens say, it must respect them.

News flash: A group of elderly men in Fujian have been busted for attending a striptease performance.  The oldest among the men was 82. Click here for amusing photo and cutline.