2015-04-22
An undated photo of Chinese feminist activist Li Tingting, one of five women’s rights activists released this week after a month in detention.
AFP
Two of the five Chinese feminists recently released on bail after being detained on International Women’s Day said on Wednesday they will lodge formal complaints over alleged mistreatment at the hands of Beijing police during their 37-day incarceration.
Wu Rongrong, Li Tingting, Wei Tingting, Wang Man, and Zheng Churan were released “on bail” last week after being detained on suspected public order charges on March 6, as they planned a public transport awareness campaign to combat sexual harassment.
The five women, whose detention prompted an international outcry, are still regarded as criminal suspects, and will have police restrictions in place on their movements for a year after their release.
Now, Li and Wu say they plan to complain about their treatment at the hands of Beijing’s Haidian district police department.
“I was subjected to physical attacks and humiliation by a lot of people [in the detention center],” Li told RFA on Wednesday.
“In the end they couldn’t even find anything to link me to the charges of picking quarrels and stirring up trouble, or gathering a crowd to disrupt public order,” she said.
“So I am demanding that they immediately lift my bail status.”
Police at the Haidian District Detention Center in Beijing had also confiscated Li’s belongings, and haven’t yet returned them, she said.
“They should give me back my Xiaomi wristband … which has nothing whatsoever to do with the case,” Li said.
“My social security card that I need to visit the doctor is stored in it, and I could be charged very high fees with no way of reclaiming them,” she said. “This has had a huge impact on my life.”
Meanwhile, Wu said she was bewildered by the entire experience, as she had offered to call off the sticker and leaflet campaign if police ordered her to do so.
“I feel totally mystified by the whole thing, especially as [we were detained] before we even launched,” Wu said in an interview on Wednesday.
“At the time, I told them that if they didn’t want us to launch the campaign, then we wouldn’t do it,” she said. “But they still took us away and put us in a detention center, which was pretty hard to cope with.”
Wu said she thought the police had behaved “inexplicably” in detaining the five women.
“I don’t know about the others, but I will be starting legal proceedings in the near future,” she said. “I think the law is the only means of protesting their actions.”
Wu’s defense lawyer Wang Fei declined to comment on the plan, however.
“It’s hard for me to say how this will go, because I will need to look at the details of the situation,” Wang said.
“I haven’t been instructed yet, so I can’t really comment on her plan to sue the authorities,” he said.
Earlier on Wednesday, Li posted an open letter online via social media saying that “dozens” of her belongings had been confiscated by police and not returned to her on her release.
“Because of this, I am planning to sue the Haidian district police over their illegal acts while I was in custody,” it said.
