The Supreme People's Procuratorate of China (SPPC) announced on Tuesday at a press conference that authorities across the country prosecuted 8,517 officials for dereliction of duty between June 2004 and June 2005, up 2.3 percent from the same period the previous year.

According to statistics released yesterday by the SPPC, between July 1, 2004 and the end of June 2005, the nation's prosecutors handled more than 1,200 cases of bodily harm or the violation of civil rights, up 7.7 percent from the year before. These cases involved 1,751 government officials, an increase of 8.3 percent.
  
Wang Zhenchuan, vice president of the SPPC said that the nationwide special campaign to crack down on human rights infringement by abusing public power has scored achievements. It constituted a step forward for implementing the principle of "the state respecting and safeguarding human rights," which is enshrined in the Constitution.
  
Wang also disclosed that from July 2005 to the end of next year, prosecuting bodies all over the country will launch another special crackdown.
  
He said the current surge in cases of tax evasion, commercial fraud, manufacture sale and smuggling of fake goods, severely undermines the socialist market order, and are sometimes related to officials' fraudulent practices.
  
The new statistics from the SPPC showed that from 2000 to June 2005, China's prosecuting body investigated a total of 34,685 cases of dereliction of duty involving 38,554 officials, cases that caused direct economic losses of 48.05 billion yuan (US$5.9 billion).

(Xinhua News Agency, China Daily July 27, 2005)