New Year’s Eve should be a time to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new, but for petitioners from all over China, it remains a difficult time to safeguard their rights. Recently, a large number of petitioners surged outside the Beijing Petition Office, where the lack of avenues for seeking justice and years of pent-up grievances led to physical confrontations between the petitioners and interceptors.
On the scene, petitioner Wu Ying (pseudonym) told The Epoch Times that on the eve of the New Year, thousands of petitioners gathered outside the Beijing Petition Office. Despite the approaching new year, there was no festive atmosphere at the scene. Instead, there was anxiety, fatigue, and long-held grievances, with emotions on the brink of eruption.
Wu Ying mentioned that in the freezing cold of about minus five or six degrees Celsius, over two thousand people stood in long queues waiting to obtain queue numbers and complete ID verification. Some elderly people were dressed in tattered clothes, shivering from the cold. “There are so many people, it’s like a sea of faces, and even queuing for two days may not guarantee you entry. Watching these poor people, tears are welling up in my eyes.”
Recently, a video circulated online showing an elderly man who collapsed near the ID verification window after queuing all night, his condition unknown. Wu Ying, who has petitioned in Beijing multiple times, mentioned witnessing instances of people collapsing on the spot.
In another video near the Petition Office, several petitioners were seen pushing an interceptor to the ground and assaulting them, causing a temporary loss of control at the scene.
Wu Ying pointed out that interceptors from various regions randomly grab people on the streets, lift them into vehicles, and drive away, forcing petitioners to resist. “It’s chaotic. Petitioners are anxious, cold, and hungry. If you keep intercepting and harassing them, they will fight back. Where there is oppression, there will be resistance.”
Despite the unresolved petitioning issues over the years, the number of people entering Beijing to safeguard their rights continues to increase. Mainland China observer Xu Jin (pseudonym) pointed out that the authorities’ long-standing attitude of delaying and evading a large number of cases of injustice and false accusations is the fundamental reason for the continuous expansion of the petitioner community.
“The issues raised by the common people are not taken seriously. They drag their feet and brush it off. Now these wronged petitioners have no way out, obviously facing a difficult and perilous situation, yet they still have to search for a way out.”
Xu Jin stated that the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Chinese Communist Party is stationed in various regions every year but fails to address actual problems. “They are just going through the motions. The entire Communist Party system is corrupt. There isn’t a corrupt official left who will deal with cases of injustice and false accusations.”
In Wu Ying’s view, petitioners generally have three attitudes: some have lost hope in the Communist Party but still want to pressure the government in Beijing; some still hold hope, believing that the government will not ignore them; while others feel that their human rights and property have been violated and looted, and are determined to see it through. If they don’t succeed, they will not give up. “In any case, their mood will not be good, their grievances are great, and in the event of any problem, they will band together and rise up.”