In the beginning of April, Beijing activated a new ordinance to maintain control of the masses of people gathering in Beijing to appeal to the government. The announcement caused a public outcry, because according to the new policy, any behavior deemed unusual or extreme by person who might be appealing would be dealt with by police authorities.

The regulation states that the police department will warn people to refrain from holding banners, shouting slogans and blocking traffic for department heads of the Communist Party. Anyone who refuses to obey will be punished. Also, authorities will take legal action against anyone who attempts suicide or self-immolation. Moreover, law authorities can punish organizers who might organize a group of people to appeal.

After the controversial ordinance was announced, the Xinhua Press reported that out of the 700,000 people who pleaded that their case be reheard last year, 90% of the appeals in Beijing were mediated.

However, this report was a propaganda effort by the government, which quickly released the exaggerated appeal statistics after the controversial ordinance was put into effect. The reports purported to prove that appealing through normal channels is best and the law will rid the public of problematic people who try to undermine the system.

The government is lying-it is not able to solve so many appeal cases. Instead, the government finds it easier to fabricate and suppress the problems, which makes the conflicts more acute. A community reporter in Beijing wrote an article about the difficult, almost hopeless situation that faces many people who appeal in Beijing, noting that some of these people, while waiting to be heard, have to live in makeshift shelters or under bridges. He said that people, after many years of appealing, have created their own subculture. Out of the many people heinterviewed, he found only one person’s appeal which was successfully mediated by the government.

A typical appeal case involved Shaihai resident Ma Yalian, who was forced to relocate and appealed to authorities. After posting an article on the Internet revealing how she had been beaten and insulted by local police, she was sentenced to a forced labor camp for eighteen months. Prior to this conviction, she was sentenced to a labor camp for a year for “public disturbance” by the Shaihai police in August 2001, following years of appealing to officials after being forcefully evicted from her home. In the labor camp, Ma Yalian was beaten so severely that she is now paralyzed from the waist down and has to crawl on the floor using her hands. Many people-like Ma Yalian- are beaten and abused after appealing.

The appeal system in China is full of holes. Many of the cases that Chinese officials prosecute involve typical civilians whose legal problems are caused by tainted laws and improper conduct by police. These cases should be easy to mediate and compensation could easily remedy the situation. However, all appeals are assigned to the Office of Appeals, which has no practical operational powers. This puts the masses who are appealing in a position of continuously begging to be heard. Government officials pass the buck, resulting in delayed action, causing more injustice. The only benefit that the Office of Appeal gives is an ambiguous anticipation to be heard by government officials. Chinese officials admitted that 90 percent of the appeals are due to some inequity. Given that the officials agree that people should appeal, should their right to assemble and protest to express dissatisfaction also be denied? The unfortunate acts of suicide and self-immolation should be viewed as sorrowful expressions of desperation.

Beijing’s new appeal ordinance was enacted to further suppress people who already have been denied justice under the law. Where is justice? Beijing authorities do not care about the lives of their citizens and are only self-serving bureaucrats. But this peremptory ordinance is just another shortsighted bureaucratic policy that will push society into a more dangerous and enraged conflict.