It must be hard to tell whether one is over-reacting, especially if you don't know the full details of the "labour camps".

I have felt a bit uneasy about attitudes to smokers in the UK - they are sometimes treated as second-class citizens, as dirty and disgusting, segregated in restaurants etc, and generally not deserving of sympathy. They are an easy target. It almost certainly is over-reacting to take this case too seriously, but I think it shows the attitudes are still very much part of the human condition. (I'm a non-smoker, by the way.)