Throwback? Maybe they never quite got out of the Cultural Revolution. Some commentators support such measures, but I think that the distinction has to be made between fighting crime (which is naturally a good thing to do, unless that crime involves marijuana, in which case it is a waste of taxpayer money) and holding these public “trials”. These public trials are there to show the good people that the cops are on the job, and show the baddies that this is what happens to you, but of course the main point is that we should not have public “trials” of this sort in this day and age.
An addendum:
One of the comments on the first page of that post:
向各位记者提供社会新闻线索：贵州省丹寨县正在修一条通过长青乡龙塘村翻瓮村我不知名的公路，当地的苗族农民不知道什么叫赔偿，只知道土地等一切都是国家的，他们只有也只能跪在田埂上为这一季已抽穗的稻谷而嚎啕大哭。各位记者：苗族农民不是为土地被占而哭（因为他们只知道土地是国家的，国家怎么做就得认命），而是为抽穗的稻谷而哭（象已养大的孩子一样心疼）。在广东打工的我，不能为家乡父母出力和出气，我真的想撞墙。求求为社会主持或反映社会正义的记者深入到：贵州省丹寨县长青乡龙塘村翻瓮村采访。
The commenter says that in the place where he/she is from, in Guizhou province, there is a new road being built that runs through former agricultural land. That the land must be requisitioned and claimed by the government is not the issue, he/she says: the peasants understand that the land belongs to the government, and the commies that giveth can taketh away. The tragedy is that they don’t understand the concept of compensation — not for the land, but for their wheat and rice crops. The commenter says that his peasant families are not sad about the land per se, but about the rice that they grew, which must now be destroyed. The commenter hopes that the journalists reading this will head over there and do some reporting. Fat chance. But perhaps someone like me could…slip in there incognito?
