That’s the verdict of the Chinese activists who met in Beijing in front of the State Bureau for Letters and Calls on World Human Rights Day. The purpose of the Bureau is to attend to some complaints and imprison the submitters of others. The NTD network reports (December 12, 2023):
“Today is December 10, 2023, World Human Rights Day, and we human rights defenders are lining up at the entrance of the State Bureau for Letters and Calls of the Chinese Communist Party,” an activist in Beijing, China, said.
“Human rights supersede state sovereignty; defending human rights is an act of patriotism,” they added.
Beijing set up the ‘Bureau for Letters and Calls’ to address civilian complaints, but reports reveal citizens often risk their lives to petition for justice before authorities.
Many of them were allegedly detained in state-backed, black jails before even reaching Beijing with their grievances….
“We are living in constant terror, with no assurance of our safety or property…. Even at home, the State Bureau for Letters and Calls security guards could storm in, arrest, and beat us to death at any moment. The bureau leader has openly said, ‘Even if you are beaten to death, so what?’ ” Yu Zhonghuan, a petitioner in Shanghai, said.
In 2019, Radio Free Asia detailed the case of Li Yufeng, a 60-year-old woman sent to prison for four years in 2015 for “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble.” She had complained about being evicted by CCP officials.
“I have no regard whatsoever for money or reputation,” she told RFA, “and so many other rights defenders are leading the way, and are able to give up the chance of material wealth. If they can do it, why can’t I? I wouldn’t be this determined to go on if it weren’t for them.”
Of course, it’s not just earnings that Li and others are risking.
The government may have set up the Bureau for Letters and Calls to resolve or at least deflect the sort of complaints that imply no challenge to state authority and presumption. But it also uses the Bureau to identify and punish any who are willing to complain about the CCP itself and to do so in the presence of CCP officials.
The dissidents are not fooled by the name of the bureau or any officially professed desire to work with petitioners. But not knowing what else to do, they risk their freedom and lives anyway.
