The Fourth Plenary Session of the Communist Party of China will be held in Beijing on October 20th, and Shanghai Pudong New Area has already initiated a new round of stability maintenance ahead of the meeting. Recently, it was reported that local government personnel have been monitoring and restricting the personal freedom of petitioners Yu Zhonghuan and Liu Shuzhen in the area.
Liu Shuzhen, a 95-year-old disabled petitioner in Shanghai Pudong New Area, had personnel sent by the Zhoujiadu Subdistrict Office Police Station on the morning of October 9th to monitor and guard her, as reported by her daughter Cui Fufang.
Cui Fufang told the Epoch Times, “On the morning of October 9th, the Zhoujiadu Subdistrict sent four people to Room 201 of the Qingchun Hotel, right next to my mother’s room. Since being displaced during the Shanghai World Expo in 2005, my mother has not received any compensation or resettlement for the past 22 years, living in rented accommodations and accumulating debts. Where is the happy life for a 95-year-old disabled elderly person in her later years?”
It is reported that Liu Shuzhen’s petition case has been supervised by the State Letters and Visits Bureau several times, especially in 2020 when Liu Shuzhen, Cui Fufang, and the target of supervision and the responsible person of the Pudong New Area government’s Political and Legal Committee were all supervised. Five years later, not a single leader has spoken to them.
Cui Fufang said, “On January 15, 2020, during the Shanghai Two Sessions, Liu Shuzhen was criminally detained for submitting petition materials to the People’s Congress. She was carried into the detention center without any procedures, and our family has not received a detention notice to this day. When she was carried out of the detention center, no release certificate was provided. Later, she was released on bail pending trial for a year, with the Zhoujiadu Subdistrict Police Station acting as the guarantor.”
“For over twenty years, more than five million yuan has been spent on stabilizing Liu Shuzhen, with constant renewals. Documents issued by the leadership of the State Ministry of Social Work have been piled up, yet the private property of the disabled elderly Liu Shuzhen has still not been returned.”
Petitioner Yu Zhonghuan’s home in Pudong New Area had four unidentified individuals guarding the front and back doors on the morning of October 11th. Yu Zhonghuan told the Epoch Times that he is now not only unable to take his daughter to see a doctor for treatment, but also unable to go out to get medications.
Three years ago, Yu Zhonghuan’s wife, Shiping, was persecuted and hospitalized with a cerebral infarction while defending their rights, and after many years of suffering unjustly, she passed away. He feels that the authorities have become more severe in their stability maintenance and persecution towards him, even causing harm to his daughter who has cerebral palsy and intellectual disabilities.
Yu Zhonghuan said, “Two years ago, despite having already made an appointment for my daughter to be hospitalized for treatment, the government forcibly kidnapped me to the Chongming Island Black Jail outside the city, forcibly taking away five thousand yuan and a mobile phone from me, as well as my house keys. They also took away twenty thousand yuan of medical expenses I had prepared for my daughter, along with a computer, SD card, petition materials, and more. They forcibly kidnapped my daughter to a care center for the disabled, worsening her condition. She, who could walk several kilometers at a stretch, now can’t even take a few steps, and has developed serious illnesses such as hypertension, heart disease, gastrointestinal problems, and gallstones.”
“When I was in the Chongming Island Black Jail, I begged the government to detain me closer to my home in the city so that I could quickly rush to the hospital to sign documents in case of an emergency with my daughter, but I was refused. To cover up their wrongdoing, they forced me to sign a letter of authorization, entrusting them to take (kidnap) my daughter from home to the care center for the disabled. When I refused, they beat me and broke one of my ribs.”
During this year’s National Day military parade in China, Yu Zhonghuan was called in by the local street office for a talk. He expressed his hope to receive more “stability maintenance fees” in order to pay off the foster care and medical expenses owed for his daughter, but was rejected by the director of the petition office, Ni. That day, black security guards appeared outside his home. Three days later, he was criminally detained for 30 days on unfounded charges of “provocation and trouble-making,” and upon release, he was kidnapped and held in the Chongming Island Black Jail for 11 days.
He said, “During the National People’s Congress and major meetings, Shanghai provides each petitioner with stability maintenance fees ranging from five thousand to fifty thousand, and for a family of two petitioners, it can be up to one hundred thousand. The central government allows local governments to account for five hundred thousand yuan per person annually, a large portion of which is embezzled by corrupt officials under the guise of stability maintenance, leading to abductions and the operation of black jails. With the impending Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, stability maintenance has been fully deployed, and more difficulties for petitioners are bound to come.”