2015-02-23

 

Chinese police patrol Tiananmen Square in Beijing, looking for petitioners, Dec. 4, 2013.

AFP

 

 

Around 1,000 petitioners from Shanghai have converged on Beijing ahead of China's parliamentary sessions next month in a bid to highlight their complaints against local governments.

 

"Right now there are more than 1,000 people who have already arrived in Beijing, by our estimate," Shanghai petitioner Shen Lida told RFA on Monday from the Chinese capital.

 

"We have been forced to come to Beijing ... to ask the central leadership to pay attention to us," Shen said. "The local governments are full of corrupt criminals engaged in activities that are against the law."

 

"We have come to bring our injustices to our mother and father, the central government," he said. "We want justice, and legal and reasonable solutions to our cases."

 

China's rubber-stamp parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), will hold its annual session at Beijing's Great Hall of the People on March 5.

 

Its advisory body, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), convenes two days earlier in Beijing.

 

Such top-level meetings are a magnet for the vast number of Chinese people who are pursuing complaints against their local governments, often for years at a time and with scant hope of redress.

 

But petitioners who get past a tight security cordon around Tiananmen Square, including security scanners and bag searches for documents, are promptly detained and taken to unofficial detention centers on the outskirts of Beijing.

 

Last May, Beijing banned the practice of complaining to higher levels of government in cases where the local authority hadn't yet dealt with the complaint.

 

But petitioners say local authorities often retaliate against them with arbitrary detentions, beatings, and other forms of harassment, and never allow a complaint to make it far enough through the system to qualify for a higher review.

 

China's "letters and visits" complaints system is flooded with some 22,000 new complaints daily across the country, according to government figures from 2013.

 

Right to complain

 

Shen said his fellow activists had left their families during China's Golden Week new year holiday in a bid to make it to Beijing before security arrangements are tightened ahead of the NPC.

 

"When we arrived, there wasn't [much security]," Shen said. "But today, there were police, neighborhood committee people, and officials from different districts detaining petitioners at [Beijing's] southern railway station."

 

Shen hit out at the practice. "Petitioners have the right to complain to any level of government or any department," he said. "What are they afraid of?"

 

Fellow Shanghai petitioner Li Xuemei said she is now being held under tight surveillance by the authorities, with a security detail of three watching her every move.

 

2015-02-23

 

Chinese police patrol Tiananmen Square in Beijing, looking for petitioners, Dec. 4, 2013.

AFP

 

 

Around 1,000 petitioners from Shanghai have converged on Beijing ahead of China's parliamentary sessions next month in a bid to highlight their complaints against local governments.

 

"Right now there are more than 1,000 people who have already arrived in Beijing, by our estimate," Shanghai petitioner Shen Lida told RFA on Monday from the Chinese capital.

 

"We have been forced to come to Beijing ... to ask the central leadership to pay attention to us," Shen said. "The local governments are full of corrupt criminals engaged in activities that are against the law."

 

"We have come to bring our injustices to our mother and father, the central government," he said. "We want justice, and legal and reasonable solutions to our cases."

 

China's rubber-stamp parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), will hold its annual session at Beijing's Great Hall of the People on March 5.

 

Its advisory body, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), convenes two days earlier in Beijing.

 

Such top-level meetings are a magnet for the vast number of Chinese people who are pursuing complaints against their local governments, often for years at a time and with scant hope of redress.

 

But petitioners who get past a tight security cordon around Tiananmen Square, including security scanners and bag searches for documents, are promptly detained and taken to unofficial detention centers on the outskirts of Beijing.

 

Last May, Beijing banned the practice of complaining to higher levels of government in cases where the local authority hadn't yet dealt with the complaint.

 

But petitioners say local authorities often retaliate against them with arbitrary detentions, beatings, and other forms of harassment, and never allow a complaint to make it far enough through the system to qualify for a higher review.

 

China's "letters and visits" complaints system is flooded with some 22,000 new complaints daily across the country, according to government figures from 2013.

 

Right to complain

 

Shen said his fellow activists had left their families during China's Golden Week new year holiday in a bid to make it to Beijing before security arrangements are tightened ahead of the NPC.

 

"When we arrived, there wasn't [much security]," Shen said. "But today, there were police, neighborhood committee people, and officials from different districts detaining petitioners at [Beijing's] southern railway station."

 

Shen hit out at the practice. "Petitioners have the right to complain to any level of government or any department," he said. "What are they afraid of?"

 

Fellow Shanghai petitioner Li Xuemei said she is now being held under tight surveillance by the authorities, with a security detail of three watching her every move.