Do you remember the 15 year old boy Liu Yukun, whom we featured in our 4th newsletter? Do you wonder how he is now?
Today, on twitter, I saw some screenshots of a chat about visiting Liu Yukun without any explanation.
After some search, I found this Zhihu (Chinese Quora) page that documented the efforts of netizens trying to find Liu. Some selected samples (roughly translated):
1)Chen Yusheng from Weibo: previously scheduled for a field visit on the 25th. On the 26th, she suddenly deleted all her Weibo posts. In the evening she posted that she lost her phone. She apologized that she lacked legal knowledge and promised that she will not publish inappropriate comments. On the 27th, she announced on Weibo that her account will be canceled in a month.Searching of her Weibo account yields no results now. The screenshots I saw on twitter is a chat with her.
2)Dong Yincong from Blibli: went there on the 23rd but could not find the exact address. Went again on the 25th. Was stopped by the security guards at entrance of the district. Was told the boy was safe and will get help. In the video (uploaded on Blibli) people can see a man in black secretly filming Dong Yincong.Blibli is a e-commerce website in Indonesia. Very popular in China for live video broadcasting.
3)Three hundred pounds of silence from Blibli: was there on the 26th. Stopped by the same security guards, said the boy was at home a few days ago, but not at home right now. At noon of the 28th, he released a video of his chat with Chen Yusheng. Chen Yusheng said the case is related to multiple (_ _ _ _).[…]
10)Qin Shuaikang of Pingdingshan from Weibo: he used to pay close attention to this case. He investigated the background of the real estate developer then he deleted all his Weibo posts. On the 26th, he sent out messages saying that we are looking at the right direction, but that is all we could do. At the night of the 29th, he posted screenshot on Weibo, looks like he was threatened by the developer.There are about 11 such messages. All are more or less the same: stopped at the entrance to the district and was told the boy no longer lives there. Many deleted their social media accounts afterwards.
This page helped me understand the chat screenshots I saw on twitter. It was between Chen Yusheng, who seems to be affiliated with a law firm, and “Three hundred pounds of silence” from the Zhihu page.
The tweet contains a few screenshots. I am selecting two to translate to show you how they talked: (rough translation, as usual)
Blue:
I am very concerned of this boy. I don’t know how he is.
Chen:
I am in the city of Pingdingshan now.
I came here through connections.
I am begging you.
Don’t come.
I will delete everything on my Weibo.
Blue:
It can’t be that scary. I asked my police station. They told me that I can get there as along as I don’t take the highway.
Chen:
I took notes of my interviews.
It is useless.
Blue:
I am not afraid. I am a government employee and a party member.
Chen:
If they want to, they can find out everything about you.
Blue:
But this kind of things just happened right here.
Blue:
I really can’t stand it. The news media is also silent lately. No one knows how the boy is.
Chen:
That is “slippers [dino flashlight]”
one message retracted by Chen.
Blue:
What do you mean by “slippers”?
one message retracted by Chen.
I can’t figure out what “slippers [dino flashlight]” means. In Wechat, when you talk about something sensitive and you don’t want others to find out later, you retract your messages, so only the person who is chatting you at the moment can see it.
Blue:
That is “slippers [dino flashlight]”
Chen:
So do you plan to go there tomorrow?
Blue:
Why do I feel that your Weibo is controled by other? Someone else is copy and typing.
Chen:
Our people is so oppressed.
one message retracted by Chen.
Blue:
……
This is so scary. Are you in Pingdingshan already?
It seems to me that Chen was talking in coded language. Later in the chat she said that she found some clue. She was planning to visit the police. She thinks the justice department is implicated. And multiple departments of the government were involved. She was not sure whether to publish her investigation.
But as you see, later she deleted her Weibo account and went silent.
Now you might get some idea on how some people online really care about Liu Yukun. They tried to reach him. But somehow, when they arrived at the village/district he lives in, they all seemed to be threatened enough to stop.
In places outside big cities, there is little media coverage: like a black hole, light is barely ever seen. And no one seems to be able to do anything about it.
Right now, there is another story that got the attention of the public: Radio Free Asia has a report in Chinese.
In a township in Shandong province, a citizen, Mr. Xie, reported tax evasion of a local company to the government. But the local government ignored his report. So he visited the Public Complaints and Proposals Administration one level up. Remember this office? Yes, Liu Yukun and his aunt visited one in their city also, and were detained swiftly.
Of course the local government hated it. They detained him three times over the past three years. But Mr. Xie refused to give up.
In August this year, the local party secretary, Mrs. Wang Li told her subbordinates to target Mr. Xie’s whole family, including his two grandchildren, and the one his wife is expecting. The conversation was recorded. Recently it was released to social media.
In the conversation, we hear Mrs. Wang Li said:
We have been studying, we are studying how we can criminally detain him. Right now we do administrative detention, which is no big deal in his file. It is just detention for 15 days. The next step we are studying is how we can criminally detain him, once he is criminally detained, there are real consequences... The people's government at all levels, the public security, are all studying how to arrest his son and how to criminalize him.
According to Chinese media, they indeed criminally charged Mr. Xie in October. Mr. Xie just got out recently.
It is not clear how this audio recording came out to the social media. The existence of such recording and the release of it is actually very rare in China.
People were outraged at how unhinged Mrs. Wang Li was. They also criticised the abuse of power.
Under the pressure of public opinion, Mrs. Wang Li was ordered by her bosses to step aside from her post and apologize to Mr. Xie. But according to Mr. Xie, Mrs. Wang came at night with a group of people but did not speak at all, only her assistants mumbled some non-apologies apologies.