By: Jessica Ties
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BEIJING, China – Chinese petitioners describe being beaten and detained by Chinese authorities for unfurling a banner in Tiananmen Square on behalf of jailed fellow activists.

Following the unfurling of the banner, which read: “the victims locked up in the Qiutaoshanzhuang black jail in Shaanxi wish the central government leaders a happy new year,” the Beijing police detained more than twenty people who were protesting the illegal detentions of in an unofficial detention center, known as a “black jail.”

Chinese petitioners claim that they are sent to black jails, where they are beaten and harassed, when they try to complain about the local government to the higher government.

Many of those put into black jails have spent decades trying to win redress for forced evictions, beatings while in custody and corruption regarding lucrative land sales.

Petitioner Zhang Wuxue described, “we were locked in the basement and got nothing to eat or drink, and we couldn’t get out, and the security guards swore at us and beat us.”

A recently freed detainee of a black jail stated that, “when we were detained, we were starved and humiliated. We were sick but couldn’t get any medical help. One of the elder petitioners was sick for four or five days and couldn’t get any medicine, even though he was going to pay for it himself.”

According to rights lawyer Liu Anjun authorities are cracking down in dissent in the capital in comparison with past years.

Chinese citizens have experience an increase in government crackdown on dissidents following the uprisings in the Middle East almost a year ago. Many speculate that the government is in fear of losing the control it has over it’s citizens to rebellions inspired by the Middle East protestors.

 

For more information, please see:

Radio Free Asia – Petitioners Thrown in ‘Black Jails’ – 26 January 2012

NTD – Petitioners Rescued From Beijing Black Jail – 18 January 2012