2015-02-18
 
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Chinese police take away an elderly woman for petitioning on Tiananmen Square, Dec. 4, 2013.
AFP
 
As millions of families across China geared up for several days of full-on eating and gift-giving to usher in the Year of the Goat, hundreds of people pursuing complaints against the ruling Chinese Communist Party gathered in Beijing to sing songs of protest, with many saying they don’t know where their next meal is coming from.
 
Unofficial choral groups of petitioners sang songs titled “The Road to Injustice,” “Petitioning is Hard,” and “The Five-starred Red Flag Flutters in The Breeze,” a petitioners’ campaign website said on Wednesday.
 
The latter song depicts a China in which corruption and abuses of official power are rife and in which ordinary people are oppressed, calling for democracy, human rights, and the rule of law, the People Power Movement website reported.
 
“A lot of people were singing in the room” hired for one event, a participant told RFA on Wednesday.
 
“But there were a lot more singing outside as well,” he said.
 
“We were singing so loudly about the courage of petitioners, and songs of victory for our petitioners. We want Beijing to bring us justice.”
 
He said the songs had boosted everyone’s morale at a difficult time of year.
 
“Whatever happens, we won’t be afraid; we will battle on to the end,” he said.
 
Leaders greeted
 
One of the event’s organizers, Heilongjiang petitioner Chang Hongyan, said the evening’s entertainment was aimed in particular at wishing Chinese President Xi Jinping and other national leaders a Happy New Year.
 
“We petitioners have a saying, that no matter how hard things get for us, even if our families are broken and our loved ones are dead, we will still wish Xi Jinping a Happy New Year,” Chang, who hired a room for the event, told RFA.
 
“We petitioners have no homes or family, and some of us are sleeping rough,” she said, adding: “My family’s situation is slightly easier than a lot of the others’.”
 
China’s army of petitioners say they are repeatedly stonewalled, detained in “black jails,” beaten, and harassed by authorities if they try to take complaints against local government actions to higher levels of government.
 
Many have been trying to win redress for alleged cases of official wrongdoing—including forced evictions, beatings in custody, and corruption linked to lucrative land sales—for decades.