Meeting Mrs Wu and Mrs Wang
Updated on 22 August 2008
Lindsey Hilsum re-tells her meeting with the elderly Chinese women who "seriously disturbed the public order".
I'm trying to put myself in the mind of the official from the Beijing Municipal Government who decided to send 79-year-old Mrs Wu and her 77-year-old neighbour Mrs Wang to the labour camp.
Maybe it was the way they wielded their walking sticks which made him decide they were "disturbing public order".
The two women have applied five times for permission to protest in the designated Olympic Protest Zones; when they refused to give up, they were sentenced to one year's "re-education through labour".
We found them in the single rooms they were allocated as temporary accommodation seven years ago.
Candle wax had melted onto the window ledge - they said the authorities had cut off their electricity in 2002. Rain dripped through a leak in the roof.
Their complaint is like so many in Beijing. When their homes were demolished in 2001, they thought the compensation offered was inadequate so they've been protesting ever since.
They told us they had demonstrated by holding up banners and setting off fireworks which they carried in a plastic bucket(!). We asked where.
"Where the emperor lives - the west gate of zhongnanhai. Isn't that the emperor's place?" replied Mrs Wu. Zhongnanhai is the where the Chinese Communist Party leadership is based.
By the time they applied for an Olympic Protest Zone permit, they had long been identified as trouble-makers.
Translation of protest application
Place: World Park
Slogan: "Nobody helps the victims of forced eviction. Government ruling by law comes first, harmonious society comes after."
Noise-making device: None
Number of people: 4
Vehicle used: Taxi
Time: Aug. 10th, 7am-7pm
Date of application: Aug. 5th
"Before the Opening Ceremony, we were held in the police station for a day," said Mrs Wu. "They said they wanted to talk to us. They kept us there all day and didn't talk to us. They gave us two steamed buns and a lunch box."
Which was fine except that Mrs Wang, apart from being blind in one eye, has no teeth, so couldn't chew the pickled cucumber provided. "I had to eat it for her," explained Mrs Wu, and gave out a huge chuckle.
It was about this point in our interview that Mrs Wu spotted someone earwigging outside the door.
The neighbours have been appointed as spies by the local party officials - it gives a new meaning to the concept of neighbourhood watch.
Suddenly Mrs Wu was up off the bed where she had been sitting, waving her walking stick.
"Come in and talk to us then!" she shouted. "Come and help me remember what happened! Stop peeping!" She jabbed her stick through the doorway. "How annoying!"
The sentence for "re-education through labour" was delivered on Monday. Or was it Tuesday? They weren't quite sure, because neither lady's memory is quite what it was.
"The man wore uniform. Was he from the labour camp? Or maybe the police?" wondered Mrs Wang.
"From the re-education department," said Mrs Wu, sighing. "My brain is no good anymore."
They showed us the document.
"I can't read, but I can see my name," said Mrs Wu, pointing at it. She asked Mrs Wang if she could read her name. "I can't see it all, dear, because of my eyesight."
Here is the document in part:
Re-education Through Labour
Decision by Beijing Municipal People's Government Management Committee of Re-education Through Labour.
Illegal activities: From March to June 2008, administrative detention 5 times for disturbing public order;
Warning: Once.
Evidence: From March 2008, she ignored the advice of the police and went many times to Zhongnanhai and Tiananmen to hold banners and let off fireworks in order to appeal their relocation issue. They seriously disturbed the public order of key public areas and were caught by the police. She admitted to the above facts.
"According to the trial regulations of the re-education through labour Article 10, Items 3, 5, and 14, we hereby decide to send her to labour camp for one year, [backdated] from July 30, 2008 to July 29, 2009. We have confiscated the criminal tools. [Author's note: I think that must be the plastic bucket of fireworks] ...According to the relevant rules in the trial regulations, we decide to carry out the sentence outside the camp.
During the sentence term, you must obey the laws and regulations, and report your activities to the Public Security Bureau every 3 months... If you break the rules, the outside the camp sentence will be revoked and you will be sent to the relevant camp."
They won't, therefore, be sent directly to the gulag, but they have been told that if they try to protest again they'll be shipped off immediately.
"I'm not afraid," said Mrs Wu. "If they hadn't torn down our homes, this wouldn't have happened. We're just ordinary people. We're small people. One year! They can give us three years and I won't be afraid. I'm almost 80 years old."
"I don't care," said Mrs Wang. "At least those who break the law and live in gaol have electric light."
