(Chinese Human Rights Defenders, Oct 11, 2007)- Liu Jie (刘杰) was seized by Beijing police around noon on October 11.  Ms. Liu, 55, an activist for the rights to complain and to seek justice, was the lead organizer of a public letter signed by 12,150 petitioners calling on Chinese Communist Party leaders at the 17^th Party Congress to implement political and legal reforms (http://crd-net.org/Article/Class9/Class10/200710/20071009120106_5929.html ).

Police were waiting around and they descended on her and took her away when Ms. Liu was leaving after visiting some friends at Beijing Zhong Ding Village, near South Train Station, an area with cheap hotels and rooms for rent, where petitioners hang out. Liu was taken to the nearby You-an Men police station together with Cheng Yingcai (程英才), another organizer of the public letter. Their cell phones were confiscated.  Police then put Liu alone in a car and drove away, while Cheng managed to get out after he denied he was a petitioner. Liu's whereabouts are unknown.   Other organizers of the open letter campaign are now in hiding.

Liu and other organizers had spent the last two months surveying petitioners and collecting signatures for the open letter addressed to CCP top leaders: "Constitutional Democracy: the Foundation for Addressing Social Grievances." (http://crd-net.org/Article/dzlx/200710/20071008213035_5915.html)   They collected a rather large number of signatures by petitioners from many provinces, who had been to Beijing to file complaints about their mistreatments by local officials, many of whom suffered official harassment and police brutality. This well-coordinated, nation-wide action may have alerted authorities, who have become increasingly nervous about any large-scale mass actions as Party Congress opens in Beijing this week and as the 2008 Beijing Olympic approaches.

Liu contracted a dairy farm from the state-run Xunke farm in Heilongjiang Province. In 1997, the state farm broke the contract and took back the dairy farm which Liu's family had turned into a profitable enterprise. After exhausting all legal avenues to reclaim the dairy farm, she went on to Beijing to petition the central government.  In Beijing, in the last ten years of fighting for her right to complain and get a fair hearing, she suffered a great deal from kidnapping, beating, and detention by local authorities and Beijing police. In 2001, with help from human rights lawyers, she successfully obtained an administrative review of local government agencies' handling of Liu's case, which ruled in her favor. But local authorities have so far refused to pay for her damages.

Since 2003, Liu has organized petitioners every year to submit open letters addressing Chinese leaders at important meetings, such as the annual National People's Congress, advocating legal and political reforms.  She emerged as a courageous, widely respected, and experienced leader of the Beijing petitioners.  She is instrument to exposing the abuses of petitioners to the media.  And she was trying to take the rule of law route to fair solutions to the root problems of the petitioners' social grievances – official corruption and government unaccountability.  

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Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) is a non-political, non-government network of grassroots and international activists promoting human rights protection and empowering grassroots activism in China.  CHRD's objective is to build NGO capacities, monitor rights development, and assist victims of abuse.   CHRD advocates non-violent and rule of law approaches.  CHRD conducts investigation and research, provides information, organizes training, supports a program of small grants, and offers legal assistance.