Recently, Li Yufang, a demolished house resident in Shanghai, was deported back to Shanghai from Beijing and then abducted to a black prison on Chongming Island by street office security guards. She was violently beaten by the guards on the way and was forced to write a commitment letter in the black prison.
Li Yufang is a resident from the Yangpu District in Shanghai who has been petitioning for her rights for 24 years, but the issue remains unresolved. On September 16th this year, she went to Beijing to petition to relevant departments, but on the way, the Beijing police checked her identity and notified the Beijing office to pick her up. On the morning of September 19th, she was deported to the Fucun Road diversion center in Shanghai and then forcefully taken to the black prison on Chongming Island by three street office staff members and three black security guards.
After getting on the car, Li Yufang called her husband, Chen Ruiming, to inform him that she was being kidnapped. When she said only one sentence, two black-clad security guards snatched her phone and smashed it. One security guard knocked her down and slapped her, while another guard knelt on top of her, choking her, and raining punches on her face, head, and body. Her hair was pulled out in three handfuls, clothes torn, a piece of her front tooth knocked out, and her necklace broken.
Li Yufang told a reporter from The Epoch Times, “In the room of the black prison, the black guards continued to pick on me and forced me to write a commitment letter, promising not to petition to Shanghai and Beijing before the end of October. If I refused to write, they wouldn’t release me.”
When Li Yufang’s husband, Chen Ruiming, learned that his wife had been detained in the black prison, he went to the street office to demand her release.
At 5:30 pm on September 21st, Li Yufang was brought back home. She and her husband immediately called the police, but the police of the Yangpu District’s Daqiao Police Station only partially recorded the case, and after answering a phone call, they claimed technical difficulties and left, never to return. They then approached another police officer, who suggested solving the matter at the street petition office and asked not to trouble him. The couple requested the police to provide a medical examination report, an incident report, and complete the case record. However, the officer instead pleaded with Li Yufang and her husband to forgive him, stating he had no choice.
At 6 pm on September 23rd, three police officers from the Daqiao Police Station in Yangpu District came to Li Yufang’s home and forcibly summoned her husband, Chen Ruiming, to the police station for recording, claiming that he deliberately damaged property (breaking a glass window in the street office). The case of Li Yufang’s abduction, assault, and detention in the black prison on Chongming Island has not yet been accepted by the Daqiao Police Station.
Song Jiahong, a spokesperson for the Shanghai black prison, told a reporter from The Epoch Times, “The summoning of Chen Ruiming by the Daqiao Police Station of the Yangpu Branch of the Shanghai Public Security Bureau clearly violates Article 22, Paragraph 3 of the Police Law, which prohibits police officers from ‘engaging in deceit, concealing facts, or harboring and indulging unlawful criminal activities.’ This summoning form is evidence of the prohibited actions mentioned above.”
Song Jiahong stated, “Bringing back Li Yufang from Beijing to Shanghai and then sending her to the black prison in Sanxing Town on Chongming Island is a crime in itself. When the wife is beaten and kidnapped, and the husband Chen Ruiming goes to the street office to negotiate, whether or not the street office properly handles the situation, and not following the law, Chen, in frustration, broke the glass window of the guard room. This action was a cry to the leadership, not ‘intentional property damage.’ There is no inherent danger in the act.”
He indicated, “This summons is entirely in favor of the wrongdoers. It is a further blow to Li Yufang and her husband under the circumstance of refusing to investigate the severe criminal case of Li Yufang being violently assaulted by black security guards and detained in the Chongming black prison.”
Yuzhong Huan, a Shanghai petitioner who has long been persecuted by the Shanghai authorities, told a reporter from The Epoch Times, “The tyranny in Shanghai is becoming increasingly ruthless and inhumane, not only persecuting petitioners but also their families. I am also a victim myself. My 95-year-old mother and severely disabled daughter have suffered ‘stability maintenance’ harassment without petitioning or rights protection. They are denied medical treatment, medication, and food. The authorities even broke into my home, taking away the last 25,000 yuan borrowed for medical treatment. The experiences of petitioners are appalling.”
Yuzhong Huan believes that government officials are eager to operate black prisons and illegally detain petitioners because there are massive benefits involved, with most of the rent and labor costs pocketed as kickbacks by officials. “These inhumane corrupt officials not only mistreat petitioners but also starve them, beat them, torture them, and it is absolutely intolerable.”
(Translated and rewritten by [Your Name])