The Chinese communist party has grudgingly preserved China’s centuries-old petition system, providing citizens with a direct channel to the central government to air their grievances against local officials and promote a more harmonious society. While more myth than reality, this petition system of last resort is highly popular among the masses: citizens filed more than 10 million cases in 2004 alone.
Fearing an inability to satisfy the growing demand, Beijing readjusted its internal security strategy in 2004. Rather than improving the capacity of the petition system, it instead implemented a system of incentives and reprimands for local officials to cut down on petitions. Beijing, for example, will use the number of grievances filed within a region to influence the evaluation of its officials.
Rather than encourage local officials to clean up their acts, the new incentives have instead resulted in the development of a harassment network of police forces tasked with preventing petitioners from reaching Beijing (an activity so common that it has a name: jie fang). The threat of jie fang extends as far as the gates of the State Bureau for Letters and Calls in Beijing – the operator of the petition system – where provincial police vans crowd the streets in a last ditch attempt to sweep up petitioners before they can file their complaints. These forces, working on behalf of the local government or, through a network of reciprocation, neighboring provinces, capture and detain petitioners in “hotels” (known as “black jails”) with dozens sharing a room for months as they wait for officials from their hometown to arrive and escort them back home.
In March 2007, the Chinese Academy of Social Science released the results from a survey of 560 petitioners. More than 70% respondents have witnessed increased oppression against petitioners; 64% stated that they had been detained; and 18% had been given sentences as a result of their petition attempt. Not only are these petitioners commonly treated as prisoners, some are even beaten or sent to labor camps simply for trying to exercise their right to seek justice. Yet even this is not the worst of it, as a tragic incident a few weeks ago demonstrates.
On August 3, Li Ruirui traveled from her hometown in Anhui Province to the State Bureau for Letters and Calls in Beijing to complain that her college expelled her due to an administrative error. Before she was able to reach an official, however, she was intercepted by a liaison from Anhui who lured her to a cramped, prison-like hotel, not far from the Bureau. There, Li Ruirui was raped in the middle of the night by the head guard in a grim room of the hotel she shared with 60 other petitioners.
The case would have gone largely unnoticed, had Southern Weekend, one of China’s most liberal newspapers, not reported on the incident in August, resulting in a public outcry at the state of the petition system and the inhumane treatment of the noble petitioners. Signaling its impact, the article was quickly taken down from the newspaper’s website due to government pressure. While a trial is currently awaiting judgment, neither the victim nor her lawyer was given a chance to speak in court.
Beijing continues to seek ways to reduce the 1,000 petitioners it receives each day. During eventful times (official state visits, the Olympics, National Day, certain holidays, etc), the central government simply shuts its doors and forbids petitions. Recently, the central government has also released notices to encourage petitioners from the top five petitioning provinces to return back home and file their petitions there. Yet in China, citizens have few other avenues to voice their opinions.
The government should recognize that many citizen complaints are justified and can provide critical information for combating corruption and establishing a better, cleaner government. While lowering the number of petitions is a worthy goal, such a drop-off should reflect genuine improvements in governance and the development of alternative channels for official redress rather than successful efforts of repression.
Published Date: November 13, 2009