Ten people who detained citizens trying to lodge complaints against authorities in China have been sentenced to prison, state media said Tuesday, in a rare official gesture to uphold petitioners’ rights.
Under China’s age-old petitioning system, citizens can ask Beijing to investigate disputes such as land grabs and unpaid wages, but local governments regularly hire “interceptors” to physically prevent complaints being filed.
The defendants, all from Henan, held the petitioners — from the same central province — for up to six days in the capital in April last year before themselves being arrested.
Wang Gaowei and nine accomplices “infringed the personal rights of the 11 petitioners, which constituted the crime of false imprisonment”, the Xinhua news agency cited the court as saying, and they were jailed for between six months and two years”.
The group were first reported by the Beijing Youth Daily to have been convicted and sentenced last year.
It cited petitioners as saying that their interceptors had beat them and wore badges identifying them with the Henan government.
At the time the paper was asked to apologise for what the court involved called “fake news”, another outlet said, but its widely-circulated report resonated with Chinese unhappy with routine interference in the petitioning scheme.
Rights groups have reported numerous cases of petitioners being detained in “black jails” and suffering physical assault, and have urged the authorities to end the practice.
China jails ten for 'detaining petitioners'
