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Will Deatherage: Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Barefoot Lawyer Reports on China. My name is Will Deatherage, the producer. Joining me as always is Chen Guangcheng.
Chen Guangcheng: Hello, everyone. Hello, Will. Thank you, everyone, to keep listening to our podcast.
W: Yeah. And today, as of recording this, the Communist Party has a fairly significant event coming up in early March. can you describe what’s happening?
G: Yeah, yeah. It is the CCP’s annual convention. Every year before the convention, they crackdown on protests and the speech that is against the party, they call this the “sensitive time.” In the past, the CCP started the sensitive time a week before the convention, then they changed it to two weeks before. Now, it is a month before.
W: So Guangcheng, can you talk more about what happens during this sensitive time?
G: Yeah. When the sensitive time [is] starting, the CCP asks all the activists who live in Beijing to go to another province, or some rural China with the special place.
W: Why is that?
G: Yeah, because they don’t want them to stay in Beijing. The CCP [is] worried that they will try to disrupt the convention. And if you disagree, the CCP will put them under house arrest. The CCP will order the police [to] stay outside your building. Even sometimes they just sleep outside your door. And if the people, they are [a] petitioner…
W: Which is, what’s a petitioner, Guangcheng?
G: Different petitioner, for example, maybe before the CCP tears down their house but not give them enough money, they ask the government to resolve the problem to get justice.
W: So what happens to the petitioners?
G: First, the CCP will ask the rural China government to put them under house arrest. And if the petitioner comes to Beijing, the CCP asks the rural government police to chase them, and if they find them on the way to Beijing, they will force them back. Maybe our listeners know when the CCP put me in prison, my wife Weijing tried to go to Beijing several times. You know, the CCP arrested her on the way and beat her a lot. One person, her name is Yan Xuhong. She live in Heilongjiang Province and Qiqihar City. You know, that place close to Russia. Very far from Beijing, right? And because she is a petitioner, the CCP asked the rural China regional government to put her under house arrest.
She cannot come out. She cannot go to buy food. She cannot go to the hospital.
And then she used some secret way to call friends to ask them to help her and to ask them to report to the police. But even the police will not come to help her, because the Communist Party office ordered the thugs to put her under house arrest. The police have to listen to the CCP’s office.
Another one, he lives in Sichuan Province in Chongqing City. He escaped from Chongqing and took a train to go to Beijing. Yesterday, he came out [of] the train station in Beijing, and the thugs stopped him and forced him back on the train. Yeah. That is happening a lot like this in China. And of course, [the] CCP spend a lot of money to do that. They want to spend money to do the violence but they don’t want to give the money to Chinese people to resolve the problem, right?
W: So Guangcheng, you mentioned that this has been going on for a month leading up to the convention? Well, how long does sensitive time last? Until the end of the convention, or…?
G: Yeah. After the convention ends, after two or three days, they will stop the sensitive system.
W: Question: how long is the convention again?
G: The two conventions usually use 10 or 11 days.
W: Got it.
G: But because the sensitive days start earlier, this [is] usually more than the convention times.
W: Why do they call it the two conventions, Guangcheng?
G: One is a representatives’ meeting.
W: Okay.
G: But in fact, [there’s] no representative; no congressman, right?
W: Right.
G: All the representatives are nominated by the CCP. So, no vote, no election, right?
Another one is, usually we call it a political discussion because the CCP said, “In mainland China, we have another brother party.”
So, the CCP said every year we should discuss the political things with them. So, political discussion and the representative meeting [are] usually together, so we call it two conventions.
W: Gotcha. So there are two different conventions at the same time?
G: Usually the political discussing is earlier [by] one day than representative meeting. But of course, that is a lie, you know. The CCP said [there’s a ] different party in China, but since the CCP controls power, all the different political organizations, they have to receive a party member to become their leader.
W: Interesting.
G: So all the different parties’ leaders are CCPs members. They are controlled opposition.
W: Gotcha. And then Guangcheng, are there any other, just for our audience’s information, because we’ve discussed this in previous podcasts; what are other major “sensitive time” days throughout the year?
G: The next one is April 5th. April 5th, you know, in Mainland China is the traditional time to try to remember the people who died. For example, if the CCP kill the people in Tiananmen Square at that time, their family will try to remember their family member. So the CCP [is] very scared about this and try to stop them. And, you know, that becomes the sensitive days.
W: And then there was another one you were going to mention in…
G: Another one is June 4th.
W: Okay.
G: Usually the CCP will start surveillance at the end of May and, you know, of course, June 4th, the CCP [is] very scared the people [will] remember the people who died in Tiananmen Square or in Chang’an Street.
And the CCP tries to clean all the information online who mention about June 4th massacre. And another time is October 1st because the CCP said that is Chinese Independency. Of course, that is not, right?
W: Right, yeah. And we’ve covered some of them in our previous podcasts. We encourage you to check them out on our website at humanrights.catholic.edu and we’ll continue updating you guys throughout the year when these different events hit. Right, Guangcheng?
G: Yes, yes, we will continue to if we get more news about this, to let you understand, in Mainland China, the party is above the law. The CCP always tries to control the people and tries to change the law and the Constitution.
W: Right. Well, we’ll continue providing updates. Thank you very much for listening to another episode of The Barefoot Lawyer Reports on China. Thank you, Guangcheng.
G: Thank you, Will. Thank you, everyone. See you next time.
The Catholic University of America’s Center for Human Rights has published a documentary on the United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights. The documentary features world-class human rights experts, from former State Department officials to ambassadors and human rights activists. It can be found on our website at humanrights.catholic.edu.