Currently serving time in a detention center in Changzhou City, Jiangsu province, the petitioner Yang Li urgently needs dialysis treatment due to the worsening of her kidney disease. Recently, her family met with the deputy director of the detention center, Gu Yi, and the resident doctor to discuss the matter. Gu Yi admitted to being aware of the severity of Yang Li’s condition and had previously submitted written recommendations to superiors requesting a change in the detention measures, all of which were rejected.
During the meeting, Yang Li expressed that since being detained in the Changzhou City detention center, she has been subjected to long-term torture and abuse. The detention center has consistently refused to provide effective treatment and has denied her access to necessary medication that she was taking before her detention, only conducting simple examinations as a formality.
Gu Yi mentioned that the detention center authorities knew about Yang Li’s severe illness and had submitted written recommendations at various stages of the case to change the detention measures, all of which were rejected. Regarding the application for hospitalization treatment submitted by Yang Li and her parents, Gu Yi explicitly stated that “the leadership does not agree, so the detention center cannot arrange treatment.”
The resident doctor at the Changzhou City detention center also admitted that it was his decision not to provide Yang Li with proper meals as a punishment for her protest against human rights abuses by officials.
Jiangsu petitioners Xu Dongqing (suffering from severe heart disease) and his daughter Yang Li (suffering from a complex kidney disease) have been persistently accusing the local government of illegal land acquisition, as well as unlawful conduct by public security and judicial authorities. They have been demanding the return of a large amount of land illegally taken from the farmers and have been legally defending their rights for over a decade, which has led to retaliation from local authorities due to conflicting interests.
In February 2023, when Xu Dongqing and his daughter were seeking medical treatment in Beijing, they visited the National Bureau of Letters and Visits to uphold their rights, triggering the CCP’s surveillance system for “maintaining stability.” Since then, whether seeking medical treatment in Beijing or legally petitioning, the Jiangsu police have continuously monitored them, leading to multiple violent abductions and forced removals.
Xu Dongqing and his daughter, Yang Li, were ordered to be criminally persecuted by the Secretary of the Jiangsu Political and Legal Affairs Commission, Li Yaoguang, in October 2024 for advocating for their legitimate rights. On September 12, 2025, Xu Dongqing was sentenced to one year and two months, while Yang Li was sentenced to one year and three months. Xu Dongqing was released on November 11.
Xu Dongqing’s daughter, Yang Caiying, who resides in Japan, revealed to a reporter that in July 2024, Qi Mingzhi, a Beijing National Security police officer, told Xu Dongqing that every time the authorities forcibly brought back petitioners from Beijing, they spent between 50,000 to 60,000 RMB on hiring “black cars”. After Yang Caiying publicly disclosed this information on Platform X, Qi Mingzhi immediately denied it.
She stated that recently, security personnel unofficially confirmed that Jiangsu authorities spend up to 60,000 RMB per person on hiring “black cars” to bring back petitioners from Beijing, with the funds coming from the central government’s allocated stability maintenance budget.
Yang Caiying pointed out that her family has been illegally abducted and forcibly removed more than 30 times. Based on this, the expenses for hiring “black cars” alone could exceed over 2 million RMB. She stated, “Since March 2023, Jiangsu authorities have continued to employ multiple black security personnel to conduct 24-hour surveillance on my family members, installing up to 18 monitoring devices and related facilities around their residence. The estimated expenditure for the stability maintenance related to my family alone could easily reach millions of RMB.”
However, in the criminal cases against Xu Dongqing and Yang Li, the authorities charged them with causing “economic losses of 180,000 RMB (stability maintenance expenses)” and sentenced them based on this amount, which significantly contradicts the actual scale of stability maintenance funds reported to the central government and allocated.
Yang Caiying believes that the cases of her family expose serious issues of the Jiangsu authorities falsely reporting stability maintenance expenses. Personnel could have solved the problem with a few hundred RMB, but deliberately inflated the expenditure to tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of RMB, aiming to create stability maintenance projects, overstate declared funds, and engage in profit transfer.
She further stated, “Li Yaoguang, the Secretary of the Jiangsu Political and Legal Affairs Commission, as a core figure in the Jiangsu stability maintenance system for a long time, should bear significant responsibility for the false reporting of stability maintenance expenses and potential profit transfer. By ordering interception of medical treatment, detention, and sentencing of Xu Dongqing and Yang Li, not only were they retaliated against for legally safeguarding their rights, but also implicated in the creation and escalation of stability maintenance incidents for long-term reporting and profiteering from huge stability maintenance funds. After all, without the continuously created ‘petitioner issue,’ the stability maintenance system would lose its excuse for claiming substantial funds.”