Shanghai retired university professor Gu Guoping, who suffers from advanced prostate cancer, severe hypertension, heart disease, diabetes complications, among other ailments, was sent back to Shanghai after he went to Beijing to petition on March 19. He was taken to the Zhoujiaqiao Police Station in Changning District. By the evening of the 21st, the Changning District Public Security Bureau had approved his detention. Gu was taken to the hospital for examination before being sent to the detention center.
During his stay at the police station, Gu’s blood pressure was recorded to be above 200mmHg, which is extremely high. According to the law, he did not meet the conditions for detention, but he was still detained by the police.
Gu Guoping told a reporter that on the morning of the 19th, he and petitioner Wang Huifang went to Beijing. Around 5 p.m., after leaving the Ministry of Public Security, they boarded bus line 14. At Liuli Factory Station, several police officers and security guards boarded the bus and requested to check their ID cards. The police ordered the driver to stop the bus at the roadside, let other passengers off, and then demanded that Gu and Wang get off. After a 10-minute standoff, the police forcibly removed them from the bus and transferred them to a police car.
The police took Gu Guoping and Wang Huifang to the Liubukou Transfer Center, where petitioners intercepted by the authorities are temporarily held before being sent back to their respective places of residence.
On the 21st, Gu Guoping was brought to the Zhoujiaqiao Police Station in Changning District, Shanghai, where the police stated their intention to detain him. Gu expressed, “There is simply no human rights or rule of law in this metropolis of Shanghai.”
In 2019, Gu Guoping had four ribs broken by a leader of a black security team in a black jail. After being released from the black jail, seven or eight petitioners from Shanghai accompanied him to the police station, district bureau, municipal public security bureau, and the Ministry of Public Security to report the incident; however, the response they received was that Gu Guoping “broke someone’s ribs,” leading to his sentence of one year and six months.
In the afternoon of the 21st, petitioners Yu Zhonghuan and Liu Dongbao from Shanghai went to the Zhoujiaqiao Police Station in Changning District and met with Gu Guoping.
Yu Zhonghuan mentioned that Gu’s health is extremely poor. He stated to the reporter, “Gu Guoping went to Beijing to petition precisely because of the unjust sentence. The fact that such a fabricated story can be twisted shows how ludicrous the situation is. Gu’s illness is severe, and this time the public security authorities, despite knowing that it is illegal to detain him according to the law, still chose to do so, clearly as an act of retaliation.”
By the evening of the 21st, Gu Guoping was taken to the hospital for examination before being sent to the detention center.