"i know my life is in danger but I just can't swallow this injustice" - wang shixiang, a Chinese businessman who has made 10 trips to beijing to petition for the prosecution of corrupt policemen, each visit ending in detention
ick. in a political system where petitions are means of getting your voice heard but where petitions mean black marks on the records of the local politicians, it's no wonder that government officials play dangerous games to prevent one of these petitions from being successfully filed and those who help them are rewarded lucratively.
the whole system has turned into an official way of saying here, have your say, while unofficially squashing any and all complaints and opinions.
all i can say is that as glad i am to be chinese, it's articles like this that make me glad there's a hyphen american after that. (not that petitions around here are oh so much more effective, but at least we don't usually get arrested into black houses for doing it).
via nytimes
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