Society
The road to petition: Journey for justice
By Lara Farrar, Qian Yanfeng and Xu Fan (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-01-06 06:50
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Famous cases
From official to petitioner
Wu Zongming retired from his post as director of complaints for Guiping, a city in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, in 2002.
But he returned to his former office last year - as a petitioner.
He complained his home had been the subject of a forced demolition as part of a government canal project but he had only received 250,000 yuan ($37,000) in compensation - 130,000 yuan less than the value of his house.
The only favor he got from his old colleagues was a cup of tea, he told Qilu Evening News on Dec 11.
Girl raped in hotel
Li Ruirui, 21, arrived in Beijing last year to petition against authorities in her home province of Anhui.
On Aug 3, she and 70 other petitioners were led to a small suburban hotel by someone claiming to be an official who promised them "free shelter, food and a solution to their problems".
Once there, Xu Jian, a man employed to monitor the petitioners, raped Li. He surrendered to police a week later and was sentenced to eight years in prison last month.
The hotel rooms were 150 sq m and the mobile phone signal was disabled, Southern Weekend reported on Aug 12.
Kidnap 'last resort'
Deng Xinjian, a man in his 50s from Hunan province, kidnapped a 5-year-old boy on Aug 12, 2006.
When police arrested him a week later, he claimed he had taken the boy to draw attention to his petition - he wanted his son released from prison on health grounds - and to punish the authorities.
Deng said his son's eyesight was failing and had petitioned officials in Beijing for his release more than 60 times without success.
After spending all his money, he said kidnapping was his last resort.
Ex-con cleared
Chen Zhenfu, 80, was convicted of rape in 1971 but on Oct 30, 2008, was finally cleared of the crime.
He has protested his innocence for the last 37 years and in 1973 walked for more than 70 days from his home in Sichuan province to Beijing to petition officials.
"I wanted to find Chairman Mao Zedong to prove my innocence," he told Chongqing Evening News.
Officials eventually review his case and found he had been wrongly convicted.
(China Daily 01/06/2010 page7)
