In recent years, the authorities of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have repeatedly deployed efforts to clear the backlog of petition cases, but the appeal of Lu Qiumei, a petitioner from Linyi, Shandong, has yet to be accepted. At a recent CCP’s “National Petition Bureau Director Meeting,” she once again submitted materials, but still received no response. In response to this, she angrily questioned: “Is serving the people a slogan or a reality?”
On May 5, 2010, Lu Qiumei’s residence at No. 195 Yimeng Road, Lianshan District, Linyi City, in Yizhou Hotel Family Courtyard, was demolished without showing any judicial documents. Her belongings were looted, and she, pregnant for three months at the time, suffered a miscarriage from being physically assaulted at the scene. When interviewed recently, Lu Qiumei expressed, “We don’t even have a place to shelter from the wind and rain, so where can we find any sense of happiness and security?”
In the fifteen years since then, she has continued to appeal for rights protection but has faced detention, soft confinement, surveillance, and threats in return, yet no one has taken responsibility or provided any compensation. She questioned, “Who is the so-called ‘enhancing the security sense of the people’ really for?”
A friend of Lu Qiumei revealed to Dajiyuan that in 2015, Lu Qiumei was sent to detention for petitioning and has not received any official charges or documents since then. Even after her release, she has been under 24-hour surveillance, her family faced pressure, her husband lost his job, and their livelihoods became difficult.
Lu Qiumei helplessly questioned the authorities: “I have submitted ‘Request for Appointment’ and ‘Supervisory and Processing Application’ based on the policies of ‘going to the grassroots’ and ‘clearing the petitions’ proposed by Xi Jinping, but have received no response for many years. I petitioned according to the law but faced suppression, with not even a response from the government. Is this still a country governed by the rule of law?”
Between 2012 and 2014, blind rights activist Chen Guangcheng was under soft confinement for exposing forced abortions by local governments. Lu Qiumei participated in support actions and was labeled as a “sensitive person,” subjected to special surveillance, and warned by the police multiple times not to contact foreign journalists.
Lu Qiumei also mentioned that the 2.6 mu of agricultural land owned by her husband was arbitrarily seized by the authorities under the guise of “leasing in place of requisition” and not compensated. Their application for residential land in the village has been fruitless for many years, and the promised storefront house by the government in 2003 has yet to be fulfilled. She applied for village affairs transparency as per the law but was passed on without a response. She lamented, saying, “The law, promises, supervision have all turned into empty words. They even say, ‘Your rights are not worth protecting.’ Is this still a people’s government?”
Neighbors stated that over the fifteen years, everyone watched Lu Qiumei running around without anyone paying attention, understanding that “common people have no confidence, no backing, so they can only endure. But she continues to persist.”
Since 2019, Lu Qiumei has also helped relatives complain about the illegal sale of the “Riverside Flower Garden” project in Yihhe New Area, Linyi. She claimed that the project lacked legal approval, the developer’s qualifications were questionable, and the business registration indicated that the controlling party was the local government and street office. Although the Linyi City Natural Resources Planning Bureau fined and confiscated some attachments in 2023, the illegally constructed parts were not disclosed for investigation, and remedies for victims were not informed. She questioned, “When the local government is both the developer and the approver and regulator, where is the fairness?”
She pointed out that the government departments denied her husband’s relationship with the land, leading to their family’s land rights not being protected. Her neighbors, relatives feel admiration for her perseverance, but also feel helpless about the current situation.
Recently, after the CCP’s “National Petition Bureau Director Meeting,” Lu Qiumei once again submitted materials, but still received no response. She suspects that officials are deliberately letting some cases ‘sink’ as part of their deceitful tactics. The Linyi City government even responded verbally, saying, “Your rights are not worth protecting,” leaving her extremely angry. “Our home has been destroyed, beaten, robbed, monitored, humiliated; do we not even have the right to speak now?”
Fifteen years have passed, and Lu Qiumei still has no place to call home, with her family still crowded at her mother-in-law’s house, with every appeal falling on deaf ears. She said she is not seeking conflict but simply wants to ask: “Is this really a society governed by the rule of law, or is it a society governed by power?”
“I am just an ordinary person. I only know that injustice must be remedied and reason must be spoken.” She called for the authorities to genuinely implement existing policies, restore the functionality of the petition system: “Not to silence, not for retaliation, but to resolve problems and protect the rights of citizens.”
She said she only hopes that the relevant authorities truly implement policies to safeguard the rights of citizens: “Serving the people should not just be written on the wall but should be implemented at the people’s doorstep. As long as there is a glimmer of hope, I will not give up.”