Petitioners that arrive in Beijing from around China have been through it for years. They are approached by men wearing security badges, bundled into a car, their cell phones and IDs confiscated, and then they wind up in a “black jail.” Days, weeks, or months pass until officials from their hometowns have them escorted back home with the help of a special security officer.
Black jails sound bad, and they are bad. Held there without the knowledge of their families or friends, those detained in them may be beaten, tortured, tied up, raped, etc. Conditions are squalid; food is terrible, toilets foul.
While some are forcefully repatriated to their native provinces, other petitioners may be set free in Beijing. While many never find out where they were detained, some piece together a picture of the locations based on the road signs and their memories. Some of these individuals were recently interviewed by journalists from Caijing, a well-known magazine based in Beijing.
A series of these petitioners’ accounts all pointed to a security company with some prestige and clout in China, the reporters discovered: the Beijing Anyuanding Security and Protective Technical Service Co., Ltd. They reported their findings in a Sept. 13 article titled “Security Company Specially Employed to Intercept Petitioners.”
“Petitioning” refers to a system of seeking redress for grievances outside the court system. Petitioners present their cases to the State Bureau for Letters and Visits (commonly referred to as the Appeals Office, by any name it is ineffectual and largely impotent), first at the local level, before escalating by bringing their petitions to Beijing.
The mass of people swarming into Beijing has been a constant headache for central authorities. And since Party leaders have put such emphasis on tamping down the number of petitioners, it is in the interest of provincial governments to prevent disaffected citizens from their areas making the trip to the capital and adding to the mass of discontent.
