More than 30,000 petitioners -- many of whom were brutally beaten and herded into a gymnasium -- have been detained in Beijing before a major meeting of the Chinese Communist Party, a human-rights group and witnesses said yesterday.
Some 36,000 people have been rounded up during the past week in an apparent move to ensure public order before the fourth plenary session of the party's elite 198-member Central Committee, New York-based Human Rights in China (HRIC) said.
Citing unnamed sources, it said police had been seen storming into petitioner settlements and breaking down makeshift structures, confiscating and destroying personal belongings.
"Many of them were brutally beaten or otherwise abused," the rights groups said. "Some of the abuses reported to HRIC include sustained beating and kicking of detainees, and prodding in the face with high-voltage electric batons."
Du Mingrong, 52, from Jilin Province, said that on Sept. 2, police vans surrounded a squatter area in southern Beijing where people stay as they try to lodge petitions against injustices with the government.
She said police arrested dozens of people, including an old man who was shoved to the ground and beaten for refusing to get into a police van.
"Those who refused to get into the vans were all beaten before being dragged into the vans," said Du, who claimed police had beaten her several times during the past months, including once with an electric baton.
Police had earlier stormed into the petitioners' makeshift homes, smashing windows, bowls and plates and scattering food on the floor, she said.
"They have no compassion at all, they are arresting people day and night," Du said.
Those not detained were too afraid to return to the village during daylight and only sneak back after dark to sleep.
Many petitioners, mostly detained without legal warrants, were taken to what HRIC described as a "concentration camp" in the basement of the Shijingshan Gymnasium in western Beijing. It was built for the Asian Games in 1992.
At the gymnasium on Tuesday, security guards were ordering onlookers away. Police vans and cars surrounded the building.
"Starting from Saturday or Sunday until today [Tuesday], bus after bus has been coming to the stadium, it is hard to say how many people they have brought in," one worker at the facility said.
After identifying the petitioners, police were handing them over to officials from the provinces where they came from, petitioners said.
Petitioners from all over China -- many of whom have suffered injustice at the hands of corrupt officials -- traditionally head to Beijing before major national events to try and make their voices heard.
Many were urging the release of Ye Guozhu (
"The right to petition is guaran-teed in China's Constitution, with no exceptions made for major events," HRIC president Liu Qing (劉青) said. "The central government should show its respect for the Constitution by taking whatever means are necessary to redress the injustice these people have suffered, rather than to add to their oppression."
Police could not immediately be reached for comment.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS