Sources told Human Rights in China (HRIC) that several individuals from a group of more than 50 former police officers who were prevented from protesting in Beijing late October are now being held in black jails. They are Jiang Fuyou (江富友), Liu Guoqiang (刘国强), and Zhao Hongyan (赵宏炎), who have been taken into custody after being intercepted in Beijing and forcibly returned to their respective hometowns. Jiang was severely beaten and Zhao has started a hunger strike to protest his illegal detention, according to He Zuhua (何祖华), a former police officer of the Xinxiang Municipal Public Security Bureau in Henan Province. He Zuhua was himself intercepted and kept in a black jail in Beijing in late October before being returned to his hometown in Henan.
In addition, Li Dawei (李大伟), democracy activist and a former Gansu police officer who traveled to Beijing to join the group action, told HRIC that he was intercepted in Beijing on October 24 and was taken back to his home in Tianshui on November 4. Li was released from prison in April 2012, after serving an 11-year sentence for “inciting subversion of state power.”
He Zuhua told HRIC that he received a text message on November 3 from Jiang Fuyou, who was being held at a black jail in Xiongying Village, Niushou Township, Fancheng District, Xiangfan, Hubei Province. Jiang wrote, “At 5:30 a.m. today . . . well-bribed thugs burst through the second gate of ward 7 of the jail . . . . They kicked me to the ground and beat me savagely, hurting my back badly. They’re going to kill me to silence me. Colleagues: hurry and call for help for Jiang Fuyou, aggrieved former police officer, Xiangyang, Hubei. 133 3982 3167.” Jiang Fuyou sent another text message later that day: “10:23. Help! I may not be able to see you all again, my esteemed comrades-in-arms! Take care and goodbye! Jiang Fuyou.”
He Zuhua said that three days later, in the evening of November 6, he received an unsigned text message which he suspects was from Jiang Fuyou. It read: “After being illegally detained in a black jail for three days since November 2, yesterday (November 5), I was again taken away by police—to a hospital for treatment, they said. But in fact, I was secretly transferred to the detention center of the Fancheng District Branch Office of the Public Security Bureau to be held for 15 days. [I am told that] this is punishment for “disturbing social order”—photographing and videotaping an action to support Tang Hui (唐慧) on a walkway near the North Square at Beijing's South Station on August 10!”
(On August 2, 2012, Tang Hui was ordered to serve 18 months of Reeducation-Through-Labor, after petitioning on the case of her daughter, who was kidnapped, held in a brothel for three months, where she was raped and beaten. Tang’s case attracted considerable attention and became a rallying cry for reconsideration of the RTL system. She was released on August 10.)
According to He Zuhua, on November 6, Liu Guoqiang, a former police officer from Pingdingshan, Henan Province, was tricked into a guesthouse—black jail—where he is being watched in shifts by a group of six cadres from the district. Earlier, Liu was intercepted in Beijing and was forcibly returned to his hometown on October 23.
He Zuhua also told HRIC that former officer Zhao Hongyan of Shenyang, Liaoning Province, was forcibly returned to Shenyang from Beijing on October 30 and is being held by the Shenyang Municipal Public Security Bureau patrol unit, with four people keeping watch over him. Zhao began a hunger strike to protest his illegal detention in the morning of October 31. He Zuhua received a text message from Zhao on November 4, which read, “I am still being detained at the Hunbei Ecological Park black jail in Zhaijia Township, Tiexi District, Shenyang. I am on my third day of hunger strike, and the number of guards watching me has increased to seven. No medical treatment, no freedom. Zhao's mobile number: 135 5570 5095.”
For more information on the former police officers, see: