After a former police officer attempted to honor the Chinese Communist Party head who opposed using violence against the students in Tiananmen Square in 1989, he disappeared. His brother has discovered that the former officer was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital, where he has suffered abuse.
Mr. Li Jinping was a police officer assigned to Zhao Ziyang, after the former CCP general secretary was placed under house arrest following the Tiananmen Square massacre. Zhao had been stripped of his offices and detained because of his attitude toward the student democratic movement.
Zhao has often been treated as a martyr by democratic dissidents, while CCP officials have sought to repress all attempts to remember him.
Li had applied for a parade permit on Aug. 23, 2010, one of a series of actions he had taken since Zhao’s death in an effort to commemorate Zhao and to call on the Chinese authorities to redress wrongs done to the student movement. He was promptly taken away by the Public Security Bureau and his whereabouts were unknown until his brother received a mysterious phone call one day in December.
Anonymous Tip
Li Jinping’s, brother, Li Jinlong, says that someone working at the Public Security System told him, in a phone call from a phone with an anonymous caller ID, that Li Jiping had been secretly arrested by the State Security Division of Chaoyang District Police Department and was being held at the Chaoyang District Mental Hospital.
Li Jinlong went to the hospital and, standing on the third floor, spotted his brother in the male patients’ cafeteria. He went to the hospital director and the police department to seek the return of his brother, but they refused to respond to his request, saying that there was no solid evidence.
Through the help of someone at the mental hospital, Jinlong was able to set up an appointment with Jinping. The two brothers communicated with each other by means of placards with messages written on them held by Li Jinping, who was standing at an upstairs window. Li Jinlong stood outside the building on the ground below.
The first placard read: “They imposed an unjust treatment by detaining me in this mental hospital. I do not have psychosis.”
On other placards, Li Jinping wrote: “I have injuries all over my body from the ’treatment',” and “come visit me more often.”
Officials Unmoved
A reporter from Deutsche Presse Agentur stationed in Beijing also witnessed their communication, and took pictures and videotapes.
With the evidence in hand, Li Jinlong again went to the head of the hospital to demand the release of his brother. The head, surnamed Xu, told him, “You will have to go to the police department to demand the release of someone. The staff here are only concerned about providing treatment for patients. We do not concern ourselves with anything else.”
Li Jinlong said: “I believe the police department will refuse to respond to my inquiry as well. So I want to first of all get help from overseas media as well as media inside China, which can help to focus public opinion and to condemn the authorities. I may also seek the release of my brother using legal means if needed.”
Zhao remained under house arrest until he passed away in January 2005. After Zhao’s death, Li dedicated a room in his residence to Zhao Ziyang’s memory, and wrote to upper levels of the regime to call for the “redress” of Zhao Ziyang’s case—the restoration by the CCP of Zhao Ziyang’s reputation. He also organized petition campaigns collecting signatures calling for the restoration of Zhao’s reputation.
Li has been constantly harassed and detained by Beijing authorities since 2005. In 2009, Li went to Tiananmen Square to unfold a banner to appeal.
Read the original Chinese article.
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