At the behest of a local court, eight suspects were paraded onto a stage before hundreds of onlookers in southwestern China this week, each flanked by a pair of police officers as they prepared to face the music.

The suspects are construction workers, arrested after staging a protest over unpaid wages in the city of Langzhong in Sichuan province last August. Heads bowed, they listened impassively as a court official read from their case dockets.

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