- Title: CHINA: Petitioners show support for man who set off blast at Beijing airport
- Date: 23rd July 2013
- Summary: BEIJING, CHINA (JULY 22, 2013) (REUTERS) MAIN GATE OF PETITIONING OFFICE PETITIONERS SEATED ON PAVEMENT PETITIONER SEATED IN WHEELCHAIR LARGE CROWD OF PETITIONERS SEATED ON ROADSIDE OPPOSITE GATE OF PETITIONING OFFICE CROWD OF PETITIONERS STANDING BESIDE ENTRANCE TO UNDERPASS MAN PUTTING HAND OVER LENS, TELLING REPORTER TO LEAVE PETITIONERS SHOUTING MAN MISSING ONE HAND
- Embargoed: 7th August 2013 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: China
- Country: China
- Topics: Crime
- Reuters ID: LVAC3C9VU5HQQEFTSEO0YVH11NF6
- Story Text: Petitioners in Beijing said on Monday (July 22) that they sympathised with a man who set off an explosion in the city's international airport to draw attention to a nearly decade-long legal battle.
Thirty-four-year-old Ji Zhongxing detonated a home-made explosive in airport on Saturday (July 20) afternoon after being prevented from handing out leaflets about a claimed police beating that left him in a wheelchair.
The case has struck a chord with hundreds of people who come from across the country to Beijing each day seeking justice for everything from land grabs and industrial pollution to unresolved murders.
Petitioners in an underpass near the State Bureau for Petitions and Visits said they knew the hopelessness Ji must have felt.
"He was pushed into it by the government officials. He was pushed onto this road by corrupt officials. There are too many corrupt officials in China. The big officials exploit the little officials and the little officials exploit the villagers. That's how it is," said Zhang Decang, who was seeking compensation for a dispute over medical costs in his native Shaanxi province in the country's north.
Petitioning the central government -- part protest, part entreaty -- is seen by many as the only chance of redress in a country where law courts can be manipulated by the very officials responsible for injustices.
Only a tiny minority solve their problems through petitions, according to many studies, but some people still fight on, sometimes for years, abandoning families and livelihoods.
Many are rounded up by provincial officers and sent back home or to illegal "black jails" to protect local cadres' reputations.
"The government does nothing. They tell us to go through the legal process, but the courts don't accept our cases, saying they should be handled by the government, which does nothing. We have been to the courts, but they refuse to accept our cases," said Li Xiaosan, a disabled former soldier from China's eastern Jiangsu province.
Speaking by telephone, Ji Zhongxing's older brother Ji Zhongji said his brother had been wronged.
"His situation is that he was so badly beaten that he was paralysed from the waist down. But not a single person called him, not a single person asked after him," he said.
Ji, who used to be an auto-rickshow driver originally from eastern Shandong province, claimed to have been beaten by police in southern Guangdong province in 2005, and had been petitioning ever since.
He survived the explosion, but his whereabouts have not been made public.
There were no other injuries after the explosion took place just meters (feet) outside the door from which arriving international passengers depart after picking up their luggage.
Authorities in Guangdong have promised to look again into his original complaint, the official Xinhua news agency said, and he has now been offered legal help.
Shang Baojun, a prominent rights lawyer who represents many petitioners, said Ji's case proved the failure of the legal system.
"If you make a big noise, your problem will be resolved more; if you make a small noise, it will be resolved less, and if you stay quiet, it won't be resolved at all. This is the situation now for our petitioners. If you earnestly appeal your case through a regular legal channel, pretty much no-one will pay you any attention, which encourages you to do the opposite. Making a big fuss is the only way. This is what it has become, and it's really terrible," he said.
Individual Chinese unable to win redress for grievances have in the past resorted to extreme measures, including bombings, but such incidents are rare amid the tight security of airports. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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