Petitioner Asked to Foot the Bill for Her Own “Stability Maintenance”

Petitioner Liu Li is being charged 2,081,740.10 RMB for “poverty-alleviation subsidies and stability-control work.”

Liu Li has been petitioning for over a decade on behalf of her father, who suffered an harm at work in 2009. In consequence, she has suffered reprisals together with a conviction for “disrupting social order,” incarceration on the infamous Masanjia re-education via labor camp, and most just lately detention in her hometown of Shenyang, the place her 19-month sentence ended on July 4. Now her native subdistrict workplace is demanding that she foot the invoice for prices together with the “stability upkeep” measures deployed in opposition to her through the years—over two million yuan (over 321,000 US {dollars}). Cheng Min and Li Xi detailed her case in Anti-Corruption and Clear Authorities Month-to-month (反腐廉政月刊), reposted to the web site China Justice and Anti-Corruption (中国正义反腐网) on July 20:

Whereas petitioner Liu Li was in custody on the Shenyang Metropolis No. 1 Detention Middle, her sister Liu Yi requested to function Liu Li’s consultant in courtroom. That is how Liu Yi got here throughout the government-issued “Assertion on Stability Upkeep Prices Incurred on Behalf of Liu Li” in the midst of studying her sister’s file. Liu Yi took a photograph of the doc.

Based on the doc, the Bayihongling Subdistrict Workplace of the Sujiatun District Authorities in Shenyang spent over 2,080,000 yuan between June 2009 and January 2020 on poverty-alleviation subsidies and stability-control work on behalf of Liu Li from June 2009 to January 2020. This contains 320,000 RMB in medical charges and subsidies for Liu Li and her father, Liu Shuyi, accounting for 15% of the entire invoice. The remaining expenses are for funds that had been earmarked for stability upkeep.

“We advised them in courtroom that we haven’t seen any of those stability upkeep charges,” Liu Yi defined. “Our household hasn’t gotten one fen of my father’s 190,000-yuan subsidy owed by the subdistrict. And there’s a sum of 46,112 yuan that we additionally haven’t gotten. The decide simply brushed that apart and didn’t even query the general public prosecutor about it. This doc, included within the written verdict, proves how the Bayihongling Subdistrict Workplace handled Liu Li.” [Chinese]

In a WeChat submit that has since been censored, consumer @天涯笔客 argues that that is simply the “tip of the iceberg” of a confused “stability upkeep” system that’s costing native governments and leaving the aggrieved out to dry:

Prior to now few years, petitioning and authorities stability upkeep have principally turn into a factor. It’s additionally probably the most headache-inducing drawback for native governments.

And this battle has, insidiously, pitted petitioners in opposition to native governments.

After all rights protection prices cash, however the manpower, assets, and funds required for stability upkeep add as much as an astronomical sum.

Why ought to the “widespread folks” be answerable for stability upkeep? Why doesn’t the federal government maintain these issues, as a substitute of “taking care” of the petitioners who draw consideration to those issues? It is a contradiction in and of itself. Is it actually essential to lose sleep over a number of folks going to Beijing for solutions?

Are petitioners actually that scary?

No. [Chinese]

Whereas taking one’s grievances with native authorities to the capital is a convention relationship again to the imperial period, the Social gathering-state is preoccupied with the suppression of petitioners, the results of consolidation of the nationwide safety equipment and the “backfiring” of the consultative mechanism.