(Ji Ruan parents’ flat is being knocked down by the yellow machine at right side.)
Here I will present an inconvenient truth for Ji Ruan’s family now in China.
- The truth is: Ji Ruan’s parents’ only real estate asset, a two bedroom flat, was completely and illegally knocked down by the local government: Zhuji Municipal People’s Government on 03 December, 2007. Moreover, his mother and grandparents were missing for a few hours. And he was really shocked and worried.
Here are the details collected by Ji Ruan.
As usual, I got up and started to check emails in the morning. Then an urgent email appeared from the screen, dated Dec 3, 2007 5:32 AM GMT, that was 1:32PM in China. It was already 8:05AM. (i.e. 4:05PM in China) I called the friend who sent me the message, and he told me what happened, as follows:
In the morning around 10am, there were 4-5 officials from the Zhuji Municipal People’s Government persuading my mother to sign a contract so that they could knock down the house and building commercial project under the name of Transformation of old city. Our family disagreed on the low compensation that the government offered. So we had been negotiating for a while. And suddenly, there were around 10 people from the government (like secret police) rushed into our flat, and forced my mother and my grandparents to leave the flat. My mother was so unwilling to leave and was crying, but they disregarded it and used violence to put my mother into one car and my grandparents into another car. My mother wanted to get some belongings in the house, but they denied. Soon after, our flat was knocked down with the full building.
This was what my friend saw.
I called my father immediately, and he told me that my mother had already called him. She was OK but without know where exactly she was, and my grandparents were sent back to the countryside where they originally live. The purpose, as told by the officials from the Zhuji government, is to send them to a safe place. My father was very upset as well, but asked me do not worry too much.
I see the Zhuji government is violating the the Chinese laws two ways:
- restrict people’s freedom;
- destroy people’s private properties without permission.
These are not acceptable to my family and the Chinese law.
Later that night, my mother was back, and her throat was a bit hurt because of the violence. The second day, her voice was lost, and I asked her to see a doctor, and she got treatment on our own cost. Her voice is a bit better now.
I bring all these things on my website: jiblog.jiruan.net, and I am sure that the Zhuji government are aware of the problem, but as of 10th December 2007, there is no single government official to my parents temporal flat in suburb, rent in mid July, to apologize or do anything to remedy.
So what is the background? Why would this happen? Earlier this year, our own train station and railways in city center was deserted because of the change of railway course. The Zhuji government came up with a giant project: wipe off almost all the buildings in the city center, together with the railways, to build a NEW city center. They never asked what the residents think, and they never thought of this as a crime to the history of this almost 4000 thousand years old city. There are 3345 families are involved in the first sub-plan. Unfortunately, our house was in this plan. The compensation that the local government offer are very restrictive, and not enough. They basically offer two choices, either take a slightly larger size flat in a locate that far from city center where they promise to finish the building by 2009, or take some money, which, even adding all my parents savings, is not enough to buy a similar second-hand flat in a similar area. Of course, there are not so many residents are happy about this plan. But the Zhuji government organized a 200-person team to persuade the people. They even contacted the headmaster of my high school, and order him to contact me to persuade my parents to sign the contact. It is just ridiculous. We insisted that we want to come back after the new house was built, but they just ignored our request, and destroyed our flat without us signing the contract.
Our flat is not eligible for compulsory purchase, as the project is not for public interests, but for the interests of the Zhuji government and their partners: the local commercial developers.
Then what are we going to do? We decided to sue them. This is not as easy as in UK or Europe, because of the complex (legal) system in China. The local police and judges in local court are all paid by the government, and they stand with the same line of Zhuji government. The local lawyers are so afraid of the government such that they will simply not deal with your case.
We are seeking help outside of Zhuji. I hope that I could bring enough awareness of the whole issue to a broad audience through my blog and any media. As a matter of fact, the visitors to my blog so far are from more than 25 countries. Some people send me very supportive emails. I’ve also talked with the friends around here in Liverpool over the past week, and all of them are very sympathetic and supportive to me and my family.
There are also people asking me to give up. They see no hope to fight for right against the nasty Zhuji government. But I see three core values of my case:
- We will teach the local government that law is serious, and they should have not violate the law.
- Our example will encourage the citizens in Zhuji, further in China, to stand up with courage, and fight for their own legal rights and human rights.
- The Zhuji government’s misbehaver will be restricted as they will see the anger from the people.
Because all these crap things did by the local government, China is now in a bad shape under the fancy GDP growth cover. The inflation rate is over 6.5% of last month compared to a year earlier, and in this year the central bank has raised the interests rate 10 times to 3.87% (year rate), but still people are losing money for the actual negative interests rate. It does affect the Chinese people a LOT, as you can see from this news from BBC: Three die in China sale stampede.
We have to save our own land by fighting back, by telling the government to conform to the law. The Chinese culture tells the Chinese not to be the first say no to the government, as the gloomy past showed them the danger to do that.
Please let me know what you think. It would be great if you could help a bit to passing this message around and I will surely keep updating this blog, and let you informed with the latest progress.
Many thanks to all the people who have provided me support.
Ji Ruan
Department of Computer Science
The University of Liverpool
Liverpool, L69 3BX, UK
Tel: (+44) 151 795 4294
URL: http://www.csc.liv.ac.uk/~jruan
OR simply: http://jiruan.net
Please leave your comments here.
To let the government see the power from the people.
Many thanks. Ji
I am so very sorry to hear about what has happened and hope that everything will be alright.
I have thought on possible resources (I know you will have but here’s what I found in a minute in any case – there will doubtless be lots of material out there.)
http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/china/beijing08/evictions.htm
I’m very sorry to hear about your family’s terrible plight. I can
imagine that you are very shocked, upset, angry and frustrated.
I have a few immediate thoughts:
1. You mention that the contract was not signed, and therefore the
demolition was illegal. Obviously, this is your first and best case for
justice.
2. Under British law, even if a contract IS signed, if it has been
signed under duress then it is not enforceable under British law.
Perhaps there is some analogous Chinese law? I mention this in case a
fraudulent signed contract shows up at some point, then given the
circumstances of the forced evacuation and demolition, then the contract
could be declared void.
3. There is evidence of the injury sustained by your mother in the form
of the doctor who treated the inject. This injury will coincide with the
timing of the demolition of your parents’ home — surely this might be
of some use to your case?
I’ll think further, and I’ll post my updated thoughts on your blog. Once
again, please accept my condolences on behalf of your family. I will
tell everyone I can about this situation, and forward them to your blog.
Best regards,
Ji,
I did hear about this problem few days ago, and it looked like a very difficult issue.
I’ve never been through anything like this so my advice will probably be quite stupid.
The way you talk about the “use” of law in your country reminds me of some “interesting” stories about Italy. People get killed at work because safety regulations have not been enforced. Polluting “thin” dusts generated by dust burning plants cover many big cities. Corruption is all over the place.
Unfortunately I have no simple solution. I don’t believe (anymore) in campaigning. In my case, I left Italy, and I will not go back to live there. I miss the sun, and the food, but social/economical/political life is so bad there that I’d rather stay here! I guess this is not an option for your parents?
Apologies for the simplistic thoughts. I’ll pray for you!
I wish all the best,
Thanks to Mike UK: I will look into that. I believe that Beijing 2008 Olympic Games will be a great opportunity for Chinese people to get help from outside of China. I am really looking forward to 2008!
Thanks to Matt UK: Brief reply to your reply,
1. i totally agree. the problem is local government’s attitude: law is law, but we are we.
2. they forced people to sign, even they put people into secret place/prison to enforce that.
3. we have proof of my mother’s injury. she is not seriously hurt, but the way they treat people are just not nice.
Thanks to Michele: I agree with you that there is no simple solution. Maybe we could make it into a PhD sub-project! :)
I d like to congratulate you for your blog. you have tha guts to speak the truth. I ve met many chinesse folks in my life in uk and no one had the courage to speak like you do. Maybe because they were rich and their interests were more with the goverment or something.
Dear Ji,
What terrible news. Many condolences for your family.
I find it really brave that you are publishing about this on your website, also because it appears to be watched closely by the officials. It is hard to know what to do in such situations.
Have you heard about the global organization Avaaz? See
http://www.avaaz.org/en/ . It might help to mail them and provide the link to your weblog. Who knows whether they already have actions planned on human rights in China, especially in the context of the Olympic Games. ( In their actions on Burma they did speak with the Chinese government using the olympic Games argument). I hope they will be interested in your family’s case in such a context.
If I may also give you some ‘big-sisterly’ advice: I noticed that sometimes on other places of your website, you use invective (e.g. swear words) against the Zhuji Municipal People’s Government. Of course I understand that you are very angry at them, and rightly so. But I think your campaign will be most effective if in future writings you do not use such words, if you speak from a position of moral authority, using a clean language describing unjust facts.
As a metaphor: Maybe you know martial arts such as Aikido (see for principles http://www.yoshinkan.net/contentsE/qaE.html ) or T’ai Chi?
There you learn how to use the attacker’s own movements to get them out of balance, and not to copy their pushing when they push you. I hope I’m explaining this in an understandable way?
So, dear Ji, I will think of you and your family, and strongly hope the
injustice will be redressed.
With very best wishes,
Rineke
I am more angered than sad after reading your family’s situation. They don’t deserve it at all. Why does Chinese government need to armtwist its citizen so much? As you rightly pointed out, the plight of the citizens is being hidden under the glaze of economic development.
History has been the witness, that governments which suppress their citizens end up in ruins sooner or later. With such awful acts here and there, the chinese government is only creating problem for itself in future.
I would pray for your family.
Pranesh Bhargava
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[...] We still have crippled government, and our rights are violated by these people crippled inside. My parents’ flat was completely knocked down by the Zhuji government, as they are trying to do commercial development in the old city center by wiping out the whole area. For details, check this post: An incovenient truth for Ji Ruan’s family. [...]