More than a dozen police officers from around China gathered in Beijing recently to protest Party corruption in the political and legal system, and in an open letter to the authorities they called for fair treatment of their complaints.
The officers are from around China including Henan, Hubei, Hebei, Sichuan, Heilongjiang, and Jilin provinces. They had been fired or mistreated at work when they attempted to point out corrupt behavior, or reported their superiors’ breaking the law or abusing power, or refused to comply with unethical orders.
Some have been thrown in jail, or lost their jobs and forced to become scrap collectors or food packers.
Their most recent meeting in Beijing was at the historic Lugou Bridge, or Marco Polo Bridge, about 9 miles from the city center.
A typical case is Tian Lan, who was the office manager at the Handan City Police Bureau in Hebei Province before her troubles began. In 2002, she helped expose the corruption of the deputy director of the bureau, Yang Junhai, and the police captain Zheng Chengyue. The story was reported on the front page of the local newspaper Handan Evening News.
The two had abused power, illegally arrested people, and embezzled a large sum of public funds, the report said. In retaliation, they made false accusations against Tian, eventually managing to throw her in jail on charges of “leaking state secrets.”
Tian repeatedly petitioned Beijing authorities, but has seen no result in 10 years. In an interview with The Epoch Times, Tian said: “The more I appeal, the higher the corrupted officials would climb up the ranks.”
Because of her petitioning, she is often followed and threatened. Without medical insurance or even low-cost health insurance, she has to borrow money to maintain a living.
Tian said that the Political and Legislative Affairs Committee (PLAC), a Party organ that controls all law enforcement agencies in China, is part of the problem . “A statement by certain members in the PLAC goes beyond law. The existence of the entire organization has no legal basis. It should have been eliminated earlier,” she said.
The open letter by the group asks central Party authorities to punish corrupt officials in the justice system, open an investigation into wrong sentences and hold public hearings, and redress the victims of the crimes.
Other police officers in the group have similar stories to that of Tian. He Zuhua, from the Xinxiang City Police Bureau in Henan, was sent to jail for exposing corruption by the local prosecutor’s office.
“We have been directly and personally victimized by the judicial system,” He said. “In this open letter, we intend to bring the issue before the higher authorities urging them to take decisive measures to stop corruption; otherwise, more people will become victims, worsening domestic instability.”
Read the original Chinese article.
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