(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-09-27 15:23

Five people have been jailed in eastern China for forcing a group of mentally handicapped people to work in brick kilns, domestic media reported on Thursday, months after the country was rocked by a brickworks slavery incident.

The factory owner and four supervisors were jailed for up to two years for forcing the group to work at the kilns in Anhui Province without payment, the Beijing News said.

"They threatened or beat up the victims to make them work for them in the day time, and locked them in at night," the newspaper said, citing the local police.

The police discovered the factory in June during a work safety check, the report said. The workers were rescued and resettled, but it did not say how many there were.

China was shocked this year by a slavery labor incident that saw hundreds of farmers, teenagers and some children forced to work in scorching kilns.

Domestic media said last month that the police had rescued 1,340 forced laborers, including 367 mentally handicapped, and arrested 147 for their roles in the incident.