Wang and another veteran petitioner had taken 1,500 flyers to the crossroads of Fuyou Street and Lixue Lane where President Hu Jintao’s motorcade was scheduled to pass the evening of Sept. 1. The flyers carried messages such as “Down with Corruption,” “Return My Human Rights,” and “Eliminate the Evil.” When they saw the motorcade approaching, they threw the flyers up and ran toward the first car.
Wang was originally detained for 10 days at a detention center in Beijing. Later, she was detained in Shijiazhuang City for 22 days, and was subsequently placed under house arrest for 16 days. The local police assigned officers in three shifts to monitor her 24 hours a day. This continued until Oct. 21.
Wang ’s ordeal dates back to 2005. Her husband, Gao Songlin, worked as a sales manager at the Hebei Province Feilong Animal Medicine Co. Ltd. Gao discovered that harmful additives such as melamine were added to the feed and asked the company to stop using these formulas. His request was rejected, and with no other apparent recourse, he reported these damaging, unethical practices to the Ministry of Agriculture in 2006 and resigned from the company. After the company was shut down, the former company president began to plot revenge, according to Wang.
Gao said that some company officials found people who were willing to slander him and fabricate false charges against him. He was arrested Aug. 17, 2007 and later sentenced to four years in prison for allegedly taking advantage of his position to gain property . He was released in Jan. 2009 when authorities were facing other pressures such as from the exposure of melamine-contaminated baby formula.
After his release, Gao was unable to find a job. “Now no company will hire him, Wang said. Neither has his application for government compensation been processed. The officials sarcastically told Gao and Wang to go to President Hu for a solution. Thus, Wang has journeyed to Beijing to appeal for her husband’s rights many times.
Remembering her experience halting the motorcade, Wang said, “There were many policemen, about 20-30 in uniform with more in plainclothes. They surrounded me and dragged me to the side, hitting me and pushing me and holding me down. I saw several cars in the front pass and one car stopped, but no one got out. I believe Hu Jintao saw us.”
Wang’s appeal did not help her husband. The Party Secretary of the Committee for Political and Legislative Affairs of her local area told her: “The more trouble you create, the less likely it is that we will solve your problem,” according to Wang.
“There is still no progress on our case,” Wang said. “ These days people in China do not see any hope.”
On the basis of her experiences petitioning, Wang believes that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has become too corrupt. “The network among officials is very widespread,” she said. “The officials only care about being promoted, making money, and getting their children to go abroad. No one thinks of the people. There is no place to go for people to seek justice. I am extremely disappointed, and I do not want to go to Beijing any more. Hu Jia is our model for standing up for justice. We cannot be Hu Jia, but we can be Yang Jia.”
Hu Jia is an imprisoned activist and dissident, and was nominated for the Nobel Peace prize in 2008; Yang Jia was an unemployed 28-year-old Beijing resident who stabbed to death six policeman after being violently interrogated months before—he was later executed.
She added, “At present people have all recognized that the CCP is like a malignant tumor, and there is no hope for a cure. We know that wherever there is persecution, there is rebellion. We want to follow the path of Yang Jia, although we do not have rights, nor do we have weapons. What we lack is Yang Jia’s knife.”
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