On May 25 an Epoch Times reporter received a call from a person in mainland China wanting to talk about why he no longer collaborates with the police. In his testimony he revealed that he had written lies for the Beijing police and regretted having done so. He said he wanted his story published to encourage other advocators of democracy in China, who may be monitored by someone like himself, to not work with the police and he also wanted to reveal the sinister conduct of police officers in China.
What follows is what he told me during our interview.
Driven by Poverty
In 1999, Sun (alias) had been charged with “inciting subversion of state power” and was imprisoned for one and a half years for painting slogans inside Peking University. The slogans said things like “Never forget the Tiananmen Massacre” and “Redress the June 4th Movement.” After he was discharged from prison, he could not find a regular job and lived without a steady income.
As of last year, the mainland democratic movement is becoming larger and larger, the Relay Hunger Strike, initiated by attorney Gao Zhishen, built up a strong wall that unified Chinese people that is difficult for the communist regime to break apart because of the movement’s moral strength.
In 2005 Sun occasionally made telephone calls to attorney Gao and had arguments with him. Gao’s communications were constantly monitored by the police. The police were surprised to hear one of the many callers always arguing with Gao. For this reason they viewed Sun as the kind of person who would cooperate with them. In August 2005, police from Beijing National Safeguard Brigade (a department under the jurisdiction of the Public Security Bureau) contacted Sun. At first he refused to meet with them; but after several months of persuasion, he accepted their request to write articles, for which he would be paid a fee, that criticized attorney Gao and other human rights advocators. The police published his article, on a Chinese websites outside of China, under several pen names.
Sun said “The police paid me 1,000 yuan (approximately US$125). Because I needed the money I wrote about 10 articles that criticized attorney Gao. They were published on the internet. I saw one of the articles on the Boxun News website, but I don’t know where the others were published. I was also assigned to write two articles that criticized Professor Jiao Guobiao and labeled him a traitor, but I didn’t do it. I was paid another 1,000 yuan.” ( Listen to the interview in Chinese )
Sun’s assignment was to criticize Attorney Gao and say that he had a mental illness. In order to do this he would often visit the Chinese Epoch Times website to read attorney Gao’s articles and look for something he could use to criticize him.
Under police instructions, Sun contacted many famous democratic and human rights advocators in China and reported on all the information he received. He confessed, “Police had tasks for me. One, I needed to become familiar and make friends with the group; and two, I was to learn what they were doing.” ( Listen to the interview in Chinese )
Sun confessed that he was very poor, and he might be still informing on others if the police were paying him money.
Quitting the Job
Sun did not receive any money in April. He decided that he didn’t want to continue informing on others or writing lies. Hence, he did not finish his assignments of criticizing Professor Jiao Guobiao and he told the police that he did not want to work for them anymore.
In May, he stopped working with the police and was asked to pay back the 2,000 yuan (approximately US$250) that he had been paid.
Sun had just started a regular job; but two days after he notified the police that he would no longer work with them his new boss called him at home and told him he was fired. ( Listen to the interview in Chinese )
The Sinister Police
Sun also related the following to expose how sinister the police can be.
The police had encouraged Sun to visit Ma Wendu, a famous rights advocate who had strongly supported attorney Gao. Sun told the police that he was concerned that he would be arrested by the police officers who constantly monitored Mr. Ma, and that he wanted the police to agree to rescue him if that should happen. The Police answered, “Don’t be afraid, if you are apprehended, we won’t even bother to get you out, we will publish the news on overseas websites and you will become famous in the democratic movement circles.”
Sun said, “Another police officer had told him that they would ”raise“ him and make him ”more important“, so that when they ”caught“ him they could report it as major achievement.” ( Listen to the interview in Chinese )
Sun wants to alert all friends involved in the democratic movements, “There are definitely people like me around you. You should tell them what happened to me so they know what can happen. The members of the Communist regime don’t keep promises and continuously contradict themselves. Even though you work for them, eventually they want the money back. Don’t work for them because they hold all of the power, can punish you at their will, and you will not get a penny in the end.” ( Listen to the interview in Chinese )
Because Sun refused to work for the police, they began to threaten him saying, “If you dare to do anything, I will turn you in as a mentally ill person and you will end up stuck at home with your family looking after you for the rest of your life!” ( Listen to the interview in Chinese )
Facing such threats, Sun decided to make public his experiences. He said, “Now, if I keep silent, I am actually in more danger. I should let others know the situation; even if I die everyone will know who is responsible for my death…” ( Listen to the interview in Chinese )
Sun made public the mobile phone numbers of the two police contacts; one is surnamed Liu (mobile number 13801113800) and the other is Zhang Heng (mobile number 13701278717)
The Epoch Times reporter called both numbers to see who would answer. One person hung up immediately after the reporter identified himself, and the other refused to comment on the case with the excuse that he was too busy.
At the end of his testimony Sun requested that his friends help him by letting others know about his experiences. Sun also said he had gone down the wrong path when he first started to help the police propagate lies about good people.
