China arrests 10 in new brick kiln slave case

BEIJING, May 22 (Reuters) - Chinese police have arrested 10 people in an eastern province suspected of beating mentally handicapped people forced to work in brick kilns and treating them like slaves, state media said on Friday.

The case in Jieshou, a city in the underdeveloped province of Anhui, echoes a major scandal involving more than 1,000 people forced to work in brutal conditions at brick kilns in Shanxi province in 2007.

The state-run Xinhua news agency said police raided two kilns late last month and rescued 32 forced labourers.

"All of them are mentally handicapped people aged between 25 and 45. Few of them can tell where they are from," it quoted police official Gao Jie as saying.

The kiln boss, a man surnamed Zhang, bought the workers from the nearby province of Shandong, Xinhua added.

"Zhang said he bought them at a price of hundreds of yuan from a taxi driver, who said he found the mentally handicapped roaming on street," Gao said.

The labourers were forced to work long hours without pay and some had been beaten, he added.

A dozen of the freed workers had been returned home, while others were being looked after in shelters, Xinhua said.

China announced a nationwide crackdown on enslavement and child labour after reports of poor farmers, children and mentally disabled being forced to work in kilns and mines in Shanxi and neighbouring Henan. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Nick Macfie)