On July 15th, Tianjin resident Li Jie, a petitioner from the Wuqing District, attempted suicide by jumping into the Yongding River after being unable to appeal to the National Bureau of Letters and Calls under the Chinese Communist Party. Fortunately, she was rescued by onlookers.
The video of Li Jie jumping into the river circulated on various WeChat groups. In the video, a woman in a purple dress was seen attempting suicide in the Yongding River in Beijing. Onlookers shouted that she was pregnant, and several people pulled her out of the water and administered first aid.
That evening, the reporter confirmed the news of Li Jie jumping into the Yongding River from Ms. He, a petitioner from Heilongjiang, who stated, “She has been rescued and is no longer in life-threatening danger.”
Li Jie, a resident of the Wuqing District in Tianjin, had her legal residence demolished, and her complaints to higher authorities have been unanswered. She has been illegally detained multiple times for her rights advocacy, forcibly sent to a psychiatric hospital, monitored, physically assaulted, and became a target for local stability maintenance.
Shanghai rights activist Song Jiahong told the reporter, “This is the evil result of the deception by the National Bureau of Letters and Calls of the CCP. It gives people hope, only to dash it later. This is the consistent style of corruption of Communist Party officials. Because the people are fundamentally unable to supervise it, the letters and calls system deceives you, gives you the runaround, assigns false handling, and the common people are fooled into thinking it’s real.”
Song Jiahong stated, “Some time ago, some people called for the closure of the National Bureau of Letters and Calls, and I strongly support that. Now, corrupt officials promote corrupt officials, corrupt officials collude with each other, and corrupt officials deceive each other. The national machinery is now stagnant! Letters and calls and stability maintenance have already been equated, and there is nothing to hope for!”
“The Jumping of Li Jie into the river was not a loss of emotional control, but the killing of a system. She did not die, but has already been gradually stripped of trust, dignity, and basic right to survival by this system. This is a blatant attempted murder by the system,” said the media person “Question Today.”
He stated, “Tianjin Party Secretary Chen Min’er, since taking office, has vigorously implemented a zero-complaint policy, tightly controlling public opinion, cracking down on petitioners, and punishing whistleblowers. Tianjin petitioners have been systematically subjected to cross-provincial interceptions, illegal psychiatric confinements, and targeted purges, all under Chen Min’er’s instructions. ‘Stability as the Core’ has become a blatant political slogan in Tianjin, and the means of stability is to silence, suppress, intimidate, and destroy (petitioners).”