Individuals who have loudly petitioned the Chinese state to compensate them for harm they have suffered at the hands of corrupt officials are now going to be paid hush money during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit.
During the Summit, which meets Nov. 5 to 11 in Beijing, Shanghai authorities have promised to pay local petitioners in cash daily until APEC finishes—if they don’t go to Beijing to present their grievances.
In a phone interview Shanghai petitioner Gu Guoping told Epoch Times that his older brother, who’s also a petitioner in Shanghai, received a phone call from the local petition office on Oct. 30 that he would be paid 200 yuan (US$33) each day from Nov. 1 to 11 if he doesn’t go to Beijing to petition.
The 11 days of payments totaling 2200 yuan ($363) for each petitioner is called a “subsidy fee for people in difficulties,” but in fact it’s a fee for “maintaining stability,” Gu said. According to a 2013 Peking University study, the average annual income for a family in 2012 in China was 13,000 yuan, and so this “subsidy” represents more than one-sixth of the average family income.
“Maintaining stability” is the Party jargon used for a wide range of policies, many very harsh, used to suppress protest in China.
Gu indicated that the Petition Office didn’t call him this time, because when officials had tried the same thing prior to the 4th Plenum, he had refused the money and told the media about it. That meeting of the top members of the Chinese Communist Party took place October 20-23 in Beijing.
A large number of Chinese petition central authorities to seek justice for grievances left unresolved due to official corruption.
Those who go this route are regularly mistreated, and large numbers of petitioners have told media about being illegally detained and even brutally beaten in an effort to stop them from petitioning.
