Recently, over 100 workers from the local Staple Foods Regulation Department (FSRD) in Huangbei district in Wuhan city, Hubei province, signed a proposal addressed to the governing bodies of their department, the Wuhan city Staple Foods bureau and Wuhan municipal party committee. They were announcing their collective withdrawal from the CCP.
Since 2000, after the FSRD (part of the government organizations and a state owned enterprise) announced its bankruptcy, these workers were illegally detained and beaten up by authorities for reporting state capital losses, corruption amongst cadres, requesting salary increments and appealing for their rights.
Administrator of a Pro-Kuomintang Internet social group (known as Wuhan Fanlan alliance group in Chinese) Sun Buer and several of its members Wan Li, Ni Jiangfeng, etc., formed a grassroots investigation team on March 25 and rushed to Huangbei district to verify this news.
A worker revealed that this mass resignation had alarmed high-level officials in Beijing. They are very nervous and might target the worker’s representative. The situation is currently very tense, and some workers have been placed under house arrest and others have been detained.
Sun Buer and his companions arrived in Huangbei district on March 26 and met with Mr. Mei, who was the head of a local hospital and was previously sentenced to ten years of imprisonment as a result of some disputes during the CCP’s so called “strike hard” campaign.
Mr. Mei, described his painful experience when the policemen forced him to kneel. He said he refused and told them, “I will kneel to heaven, to earth, to my parents, but why should I kneel to you?” The prison officer then handcuffed his arms and legs and forced him to kneel on the ground and kowtow to them. They also hit his forehead with a high voltage electric baton until he lost consciousness.
On the day of the investigation, one of the initiators of the collective withdrawal, Wan Huaiyan, was sent to an “education class” to “reform his thinking” and was therefore not contactable.
A dismissed worker told Sun Buer and his companions that there were many conflicts and complications after the restructuring of the Huangbei district Staple Foods Regulation Department. This incident of collective resignations was not a coincidence but a result of accumulated tensions between the workers and the rich and influential bureaucrats. Anticipation had turned into despondency and desperation. Finally the furious workers decided to sign a joint statement requesting to withdraw from the party membership. The application to withdraw from the party by more than 100 workers is the epitome of the masses’ extreme dissatisfaction with the government.
