Relocation victims forced into labor camp after protest in Tian'anmen
Staff Reporter 2012-09-09 11:56 (GMT+8)
Labor camps are designed for "re-educating" its inhabitants in the proper doctrines of the Communist Party. (File photo/Xinhua)
Twenty five victims of a forced demolition and relocation of their homes in Changsha city, Hunan province, were sentenced to re-education through labor and prison sentence after they held a protest at Tian'anmen Square for 30 seconds.
One of the protesters, 53-year-old Zhou Jianyue, used to make a living through his small restaurant in Changsha city, but after the forced demolition of his house in 2001, his family was relocated to a house where he was no longer able to continue his business. His request for reallocation went unanswered for a decade, according to Caixin media, a financial news provider.
In the summer of 2011, Zhou and his wife, along with 23 other people who had been forced out of their homes, kneeled down and began chanting a slogan, holding up a banner and a lawsuit paper before the national flag at Tian'anmen Square in protest of their forced relocation. Within a minute, they were surrounded by 50 plainclothes police officers and charged for "creating chaos, disturbing the social order of the square and creating a negative social influence by attracting the attention of hundreds of foreign visitors," according to the Changsha Committee for Re-education through Labor.
In Oct 10 of the same year, the committee sentenced four of the protesters to two to three years in prison. The rest of them were given one year to 18 months of re-education through labor. Some protestors filed a lawsuit against the ruling but the court told them if they dropped the charge, they will be released, otherwise they will remains in prison. Two of the protesters who pressed on with the lawsuit lost and are still locked in prison, according to Caixin Media.
Zhou said they wanted to draw the attention of senior officials to their plights and thought he would only be detained for five to ten days since they only kneeled down for 30 seconds and asked only for the right to survive. If he knew the sentence was far heavier than he expected, he would have never thought to protest. He and his wife did not serve terms in labor camp because he he sought out contacts to clean up the mess, reported the Chinese media.
He and four other protesters lost the lawsuit against the re-education through labor sentence in June this year. The court of Changsha's Furong district denied their appeal on the ground that "their sentences based on irrefutable fact and their legal procedures were in line with law." Zhou and the protesters brought their appeal to the intermediate court of the city.
The lawyer of Zhou's wife said their protests have proper cause since their survival has been endangered by the forced demolition. They kneeled down before the flag to show their respect to the country and to highlight their helplessness, not to incite rebellion. Zhou's lawer Li Renjie also said the order of re-education through labor was illegal as it deprived four years of their freedom without the permission of courts or public procurators and was conducted without the police, according to Caixin Media.
