Police place too heavy hand on card game

During a trip to Tai'an in East China's Shandong province, eight graduating students played cards in the hotel where they were staying, betting 1 yuan (16 cents) a game. The local police said they were gambling and detained them for 15 days and fined them 3,000 yuan each, the highest fine allowed. Comments:

Gambling breaks the law and can be serious sometimes, but only if somebody has organized the gambling for profit. In the case of the graduating students, no one was running the card game for profit. The decision to give them the highest penalty is too severe.

Liu Guiming, chief editor of Democracy and Legal System magazine, June 11

The law should embody the principle that the penalty matches the deed, and acts as a deterrent to warn others from committing the crime. The eight students probably never realized they were breaking the law and none of them had the intention of organizing a gambling den. A lighter penalty would have been better.

Beijing Times, June 11

The claim that the penalty is too heavy is irrational because the police have the power to decide how much to fine wrongdoers. However, there is wide discontent with the police because they often selectively enforce the law - when it comes to theft, they sometimes pass the buck and refuse to help citizens; when it comes to gambling, they rush to the site immediately because they can issue tickets and make money for the bureau. Such double standards will only hurt the public's trust in their integrity.

Zhang Junyu, commentator via Sina blog, June 11