On August 4, Liu Hongxia, a petitioner from Zhengzhou, Henan Province, who used to work for a state-controlled media outlet, took her two daughters to the provincial government to ask Governor Wang Kai for a meal. They were then taken by a group of people to a nearby natural history museum, where they were told that it was not a place for begging, and that what Liu Hongxia was doing was illegal.
Liu Hongxia, along with her two daughters, went to the provincial government to ask Governor Wang Kai for a meal. They were later taken by a group of people to the entrance of the natural history museum near the provincial government, where they were told that it was not a place for begging. Liu Hongxia stated, “Henan has a group of corrupt officials who fabricated the ‘Zhengzhou fake family separation fraud case’ and took everything from me. We came to see Governor Wang Kai to ask for a meal.” A man with slightly white hair then came out and accused Liu Hongxia of illegal behavior, followed by a woman in plain clothes who claimed to be from the Zhengdong police station and angrily scolded Liu Hongxia for breaking the law.
Subsequently, Liu Hongxia recorded a video saying, “I, Liu Hongxia, came to the Henan Provincial Government on August 4, 2025, to ask Governor Wang Kai for a meal. If I have violated the law, you can handle me according to the law. It’s strange in Henan, where starving people are not allowed to ask Governor Wang Kai for a meal. If I starve to death right here, Governor Wang Kai, will you care?” She also said, “Are you forcing me, Liu Hongxia, to die right at the entrance of the Henan Provincial Government? Governor Wang Kai, we came to see you for a meal because my family still trusts you. Are you just going to block the entrance and not let us see you? Is this what Governor Wang Kai means by ‘serving the people’? The Henan Governor has ignored the life and death of me and my daughter, and merely coming to ask Governor Wang Kai for a meal is considered illegal!”
Liu Hongxia also questioned whether the Henan Provincial Government, located in the Jinshui District, should be under the jurisdiction of the Jinshui police station or the Zhengdong police station.
Liu Hongxia told a reporter, “Now we can’t afford meals, can’t pay rent… They don’t solve our relocation issues, and they withhold our village welfare cards! We can’t survive. The officials from the Jinshui District of Zhengzhou called me and asked me to wait a few days.”
44-year-old Liu Hongxia used to work for state-controlled media before becoming a petitioner. After her divorce in 2006, she and her husband were involved in a family dispute related to their construction contracting business, which was manipulated by officials, leading to the fake family separation fraud case in Zhengzhou and causing her to suffer millions in property losses, pushing her onto the path of seeking justice through petitioning.
As a petitioner, Liu Hongxia has helped numerous petitioners and has been involved in producing news related to petitioners for many years. She has experienced being taken by Beijing police for questioning, sentenced to prison, physically assaulted, and placed under house arrest by local stability maintenance personnel in Zhengzhou.
In 2017, Liu Hongxia produced a video about petitioning the director of the CCP’s National Bureau of Letters and Calls, Shu Xiaoqin, but was arrested by the police and sentenced to 1 year and 6 months in prison.
On April 9, 2021, rights activist Guo Hongwei mysteriously died while serving his sentence in the Princess Ridge Prison in Jilin, and in May of the same year, Liu Hongxia faced pressure from the Henan police after producing and distributing a video titled “There is no corruption in heaven – deep mourning for the famous Chinese rights activist Guo Hongwei.”