Poor petitioners not welcome in People’s Republic

In the 2016 Chinese movie I am Not Madame Bovary, glamorous actress Fan Bingbing shed makeup for the role of a rural petitioner whose quest for justice takes 11 relentless years.

That is, however, rarely true for the thousands of petitioners with grievances against local governments, who land in Beijing during the annual sessions of China’s Parliament, only to be harassed, driven back or detained by the police.

The National People’s Con- gress (NPC), China’s rubberstamp Parliament and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference — the country’s top advisory body — convenes for two weeks every March. This is the time when citizens with complaints – mostly relating to land, education and healthcare – knock the doors of the highest authorities. It is technically legal to petition the central government in Beijing against local governments.

But activists say Beijing routinely harasses the complainants and dispatches them from the capital. Local governments obstruct these petitioners because their performance rating drops if the higher authorities receive too many petitions, Guo Liang, a law professor told state media last year.

A human rights activist shared nearly 50 cases of petitioners being detained, sent back to their home towns or even prevented from leaving their homes this year. Sometimes, petitioners and activists are put in preemptive detentions before the two sessions. The activist told HT about Qiu Meili from Shanghai, whose house was demolished 10 years ago but is yet to receive compensation; Qiu was detained by local police before leaving for Beijing.

And there are many such examples.

“On the morning of February 28, Cheng Yulan, Shanghai human rights activist and a Christian, was abducted by eight Shanghai police officers from his residence in Beijing, and was taken to Shanghai,” was another example shared with HT.

“The underlying issues at hand are often very severe human rights violations, and until these issues are peacefully resolved, petitioning will likely continue to be a main source of tension in Chinese society,” William Nee from rights group Amnesty International told HT.

China’s angry petitioners wish they met officials like Fan Bingbing’s character in the movie to get justice. Even if it takes 11 years.