Four protesters in Beijing cut off their fingertips and swallowed them in a desperate bid to bring attention to their cause, state media reported yesterday.
The men, from Hunan Province, traveled to the capital to seek resolution of a dispute with their former employer, who they said fired them on trumped-up charges, the official Global Times newspaper said.
They gathered at Tsinghua University, one of the nation’s most highly regarded, on Sunday and rested their hands on books on the pavement, the report said.
Then, in front of hundreds of bystanders, each in turn held a cleaver and brought it down, cutting the tops off their little fingers and swallowing the severed tips, it said.
“I felt so calm doing that, as we have been driven from pillar to post,” Li Bo, one of the men, was quoted as saying.
The four have since been seized by police and forced out of Beijing, the report said.
The case highlights the desperate measures some people in China will take to bring attention to grievances that have been ignored by local governments or courts.
Over the past year, some protesters have even set themselves on fire and died to prevent their houses or businesses from being demolished, in cases that have shocked the nation.
Li said the electric power bureau in Hunan’s Yongzhou City fired the four in December 2008 on charges of absenteeism, which he said were wrong.
They tried to have their case heard at the city’s committee for labor disputes, which rebuffed them, saying they had never worked for the electricity bureau.
Last month, they filed a lawsuit against their former employer, but a court in Hunan rejected it, the report said.
Li alleged that the four had also received death threats from local government officials in Hunan, and after all legal avenues were exhausted, they decided to travel to Beijing as a last resort, it said.
Under a system dating from imperial times, Chinese people can petition government authorities in Beijing over injustices or unresolved disputes.
However, many such petitioners complain of official unresponsiveness to their concerns, while others report being detained by authorities and kicked out of the capital to be sent home.
‘TAIWAN-FRIENDLY’: The last time the Web site fact sheet removed the lines on the US not supporting Taiwanese independence was during the Biden administration in 2022 The US Department of State has removed a statement on its Web site that it does not support Taiwanese independence, among changes that the Taiwanese government praised yesterday as supporting Taiwan. The Taiwan-US relations fact sheet, produced by the department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, previously stated that the US opposes “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.” In the updated version published on Thursday, the line stating that the US does not support Taiwanese independence had been removed. The updated
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or