BEIJING (Caixin Online) — After spending just over 10 years on filing complaints over a court ruling on criminal charges, 55-year-old Zhang Yaodong believed he was close to success when his sister called one morning in November. But the short distance between Beijing and his Henan home turned out to be deadly for the petitioner.

Zhang, who was at a government petitioner’s office in Beijing at the time, received a phone call from his older sister, who said that the local court had promised to address his petition. He packed his bags and boarded a van back to his hometown in Pingdingshan Prefecture, Henan Province.

An hour later, Zhang’s sister received a call from a petitioner in the same van, who told her that her brother had been beaten unconscious. Zhang’s sister arrived in Beijing on the second day only to find her brother dead.

Zhang became another victim on the bloody road of petition in China, which is both opaque and sometimes dangerous.

The lack of an independent judiciary has made many Chinese citizens believe that a petition to the central government is the only way to get justice. When they register a complaint with officials in Beijing, however, petitioners immediately become enemies of the local authorities, who try hard to return them home in the name of “maintaining social stability.”

Zhang’s death coincided with the eve of the Communist Party’s 18th National Congress. Under political pressure to create a harmonious society for the important congress, officials in Pingdingshan soon reached a deal with the family, with the assistance of the Beijing police.

The family agreed to affirm the official cause of Zhang’s death as disease. In return, the family would accept millions of yuan USDCNY, -0.37% in compensation. The case was closed.

But Wang Yueqin, also a petitioner, remembers vividly how a life was ended.

Moments before the tragedy

The tragic day of Nov. 6 began for Wang when Beijing police stormed a room in a bath center and sent Wang and two fellow petitioners, Mi Chunxia and Huang Yinhua, to the Jiujingzhuang Assistance Service Center.

“ Beijing has long had a complex petitioner control system. Those that make petition filing a routine make it to a blacklist, which is then distributed to all hotels. Individuals that attempt to check-in to hotels are then reported to authorities. ”

Established by China’s petitions agency, the State Bureau for Letters and Calls, the center is the officially designated office for police and local officials to meet with petitioners. Sometimes an agreement is reached, but more often than not, local officials use the center as a venue for dissuading petitioners from seeking higher adjudication.

According to official rules, local governments may not intercept petitioners going to Beijing. Petitioners going to so-called sensitive areas in Beijing, including government offices and the high court for “abnormal petitioning” are first sent to Jiujingzhuang, then separated into groups and sent back home.

The flaws in the legal system, which closely linked with government interference, often leave petitions as the one legal avenue of recourse for Chinese citizens. But the waves of petitioners that come to the capital have also spawned a cottage industry of private jails and security forces paid for by local governments.

So-called black guards are paid to intimidate, transport and detain petitioners from centers like Jiujingzhuang.

“Blocking petitioners is an open secret among China’s political institutions and a practice that is tacitly permitted by the government,” said Yu Jianrong, director of the Rural Development Institute’s Social Issues Research Center at the China Academy of Social Sciences. “The filing of petitions generates a high economic and political cost for local governments.”

Yu added that preventing individuals from filing petitions has a damaging effect on the legal system.

“The practice is a violation of the basic rights of petitioners. It hurts the legitimacy of the government. It also encourages corruption when local governments try to bribe petition centers for timely information and collaborate in blocking petitioners from reaching their destination,” said Yu.

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As regular petitioners from the same city, Wang and others were familiar with Zhang. A few days prior to their detention in a black jail, they had spoken to each other by phone and agreed on a strategy.

Due to the sensitivity of the 18th congress, they would wait to file another round of petitions, and simply stay in Beijing for a few days to get the attention of local authorities.

Beijing has long had a complex petitioner control system. Those that make petition filing a routine make it to a blacklist, which is then distributed to all hotels. Individuals that attempt to check-in to hotels are then reported to authorities.

Wang and others recalled that day Zhang was wearing a dark gray sweater and seemed to be in a good mood. Zhang was confident that his petition would be resolved and that he would receive enough compensation to restart his business. He told Wang that he also made the trip to Beijing to look out for investment opportunities.

Zhang once owned the Pingdingshan Prefecture East Asian Cocoon Co. In September 2002, a local court sentenced him to 10 years in jail for fraud. The court also ordered Zhang to transfer his assets, used as collateral for bank loans, as compensation to the plaintiff, another local company.

Zhang felt wronged, saying that besides the unfair handling of property, his actions constituted a civil suit, not a criminal fraud suit and the penalty of 10 years was too heavy. He also wanted his assets back.

Since then, Zhang Yaohua has also worked to redress her brother’s grievances.

In one protest, she draped herself in a banner that read “injustice” and knelt in front of the national flag in Tiananmen Square. She had been officially detained seven times for “illegal petitioning,” and had met with Qin Yuhai, director of the Henan Provincial Public Security Bureau as a petitioner representative.

She can’t remember how many times she has been to Beijing to petition. She only remembers that once in 2007, a worker at the National People’s Conference told her that she had been to the office of the congress 72 times.

In March 2007, Zhang was released from prison three years early due to a disability from prison labor. At this point, he began to petition for himself.

A source from Zhang’s hometown said that he had a good reputation among his neighbors. When business was good, he often helped the elderly in his village that lacked financial support and repaired two bridges. After being imprisoned, Zhang felt he could no longer hold his head high and became determined to overturn his sentence.

On the morning of Nov. 6, Zhang received a call from his sister in their hometown and learned that the local court promised to resolve his compensation issue as soon as possible. Beijing police also informed him that he needed to return soon.

Wang remembers that the atmosphere at the scene was friendly. A policeman smiled and teased Zhang that his trip had been very cost effective — in addition to getting his house back, he would receive cash compensation and would soon be able to rebuild his life.

Soon, four petitioners including Wang and Zhang boarded a van in which there was another Henan man with an accent from the Nanjiang region claiming to be an official in the Provincial Politics and Law Committee.

Those responsible for escorting petitioners home are “black security guards,” who like to call themselves members of the police or from the office of politics and law committee, said Zhang Yaohua.

Including the driver and the Nanyang man, six people left Jiujingzhuang in the van.

Trapped and beaten

Ten minutes into the drive, Wang received a text message stating that the Supreme Court Filing Office had agreed to see her. Unwilling to return home, she asked to be let out of the van. The Nanyang man said he needed to call to consult higher-ups before the van could stop.

The van eventually stopped under an overpass to let in two men in their twenties, one fat and one thin, whose identities were never revealed. Upon boarding the van, the two men demanded everyone hand over their phones. Wang refused, saying the phone was private property. Zhang asked them to show their law enforcement certificates.

The thin man began to insult Wang and slapped her on the face. The fat man began to beat Zhang.

The van doors were closed and those inside had no way to get out, nor did their cries escape the vehicle. Wang used one hand to ward off her attacker and banged on the window for help with the other.

Wang recalled that the beatings lasted more than 10 minutes. During this time, Huang, who sat in the front of the vehicle, began weeping and begged the Nanyang men to stop the beatings.

The thin man replied, “This is Beijing. As long as we don’t kill anyone, no one will care.” Before long, Wang heard someone in the back of the van screaming. When she turned around, she saw Zhang had fainted.

The two men started to panic. They unbuttoned Zhang’s clothes and hit his chest in an attempt to resuscitate him. But Zhang was quickly lost his breath.

Several minutes later, a similar van pulled up under the overpass to take the three female petitioners. The man with the Nanyang accent in the van said he would send Zhang to the hospital. The three women demanded to send at least one person to accompany Zhang, but they were refused.

Reluctantly, the three boarded the new van. Wang dialed Zhang’s sister and told her that Zhang had been beaten unconscious by “black security guards” and his life could be in danger.

Violence, then silence

Zhang Yaohua wasn’t particularly nervous after receiving the phone call. In March, “black security guards” had also beaten Zhang on his way home, and he recovered after hospitalization. She didn’t believe that someone could be beaten to death in Beijing with the opening of the all-important 18th party congress so close.

On Nov. 7, Zhang’s family arrived in Beijing. At the Xicheng District Public Security Bureau, they learned that Zhang had already died.

Zhang Yaohua said that at the time, a policeman told her that an evaluation by a legal medical expert showed no external injuries, and more than a dozen people had testified that Zhang hadn’t been beaten. A criminal case had already been ruled out, said the officer.

When the Zhang family quoted Wang’s call from the van describing the scene, the officer told them that the testimony of those in the van had been rejected.

At this time, Wang and the two others had returned to Pingdingshan and had been turned over to the local government workers by another set of “black security guards.”

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After learning of how the Beijing police would handle the case, Wang kept pictures of her own wounds as evidence. Later, the three met and recalled the events. They wrote a joint statement and after affixing their fingerprints, they sent it along with pictures to Zhang’s relatives to Beijing.

Huang recalled that after arriving at Pingdingshan, she specifically asked local government workers how much it paid to escort a petitioner back.

She was told it was 2,000 yuan ($321) per person. Several days later, she happened to hear government officials discussing the payment to “black guards” in the Zhang case, saying: “We can’t hand out the 2,000 yuan USDCNY, -0.37% this time. No one dares to ask for it.”

On Nov. 8, a deputy district head from Zhanhe surnamed Wang led a team of more than 30 local government officials, policemen and legal experts to Beijing to handle the Zhang incident. With the Beijing police, they took Zhang’s family to a funeral home in Changping District to finally see his dead body.

The Zhang family was told that Zhanhe authorities would investigate the incident with the Beijing police and asked them to be patient. Later, they were restricted to their hotel, not allowed to go out and barred from contacting reporters.

On the afternoon of Nov. 12, the police gave the forensic examination of Zhang to his family. It was signed by the Beijing Shengtang Forensic Examination Center.

The report used muddled language, but came to resolute conclusions that “death from external trauma can be excluded. Combined with the details of the case, it cannot be ruled out that Zhang died due to untreatable illness.”

Peng Yushan, the medical examiner, explained that the Xicheng District police asked him to do an external examination of the corpse, but wouldn’t let him do an autopsy. The legal medical expert couldn’t confirm a clear cause of death.

The negotiation soon started. Zhang Yaohua said that authorities made it clear that a petitioner being beaten to death wasn’t “allowed to happen” during the 18th congress.

If the family didn’t sign on illness as Zhang’s cause of death, compensation would be out of the question, and the body could not be cremated. Compelled by the pressure, she eventually signed her name, so did children of Zhang.

The talk of the compensation began on Nov. 14 between the Zhang family and Zhanhe officials, and took two days.

The family recognized the expert opinion that “Zhang died of disease” and agreed not to seek compensation from the central government or use petitioning to handle the issue. In return, a local district court agreed to pay compensation of 3.3 million yuan within 10 days.

Zhang Yaohua said Zhanhe district officials also asked her to write a “pledge to cease petitioning and stop litigation” and say that she was satisfied with the results. If she didn’t sign, they told her, she would be sent home immediately and not permitted to attend her brother’s cremation. She signed again.

At the cremation on the morning of Nov. 17, Zhang Yaohua discovered that Zhang’s face was deformed. His eyes were black and blue. She took three photos with her cellphone and was immediately stopped by police. Zhang Yaohua continued to cry. She was forcefully pulled away and put in a car back to Pingdingshan.

Pingdingshan officials told Zhang Yaohua that in view of the sacrifices she made in a decade of petitioning, 300,000 yuan of the 3.3 million yuan of compensation belonged to her. But she had to write a “confession” admitting that the petition information she had previously exposed online was all false. She refused.

“The two previous signatures had already buried my conscience, and I would not make the same mistake again,” said Zhang Yaohua.

Zhang’s children say that the family has already paid a heavy price and they decided to give up. Living in peace, they say, is better than anything else.

Read this report on Caixin Online.