Four protesters in Beijing cut off their fingertips and swallowed them in a desperate bid to bring attention to their cause, state media reported yesterday.
The men, from Hunan Province, traveled to the capital to seek resolution of a dispute with their former employer, who they said fired them on trumped-up charges, the official Global Times newspaper said.
They gathered at Tsinghua University, one of the nation’s most highly regarded, on Sunday and rested their hands on books on the pavement, the report said.
Then, in front of hundreds of bystanders, each in turn held a cleaver and brought it down, cutting the tops off their little fingers and swallowing the severed tips, it said.
“I felt so calm doing that, as we have been driven from pillar to post,” Li Bo, one of the men, was quoted as saying.
The four have since been seized by police and forced out of Beijing, the report said.
The case highlights the desperate measures some people in China will take to bring attention to grievances that have been ignored by local governments or courts.
Over the past year, some protesters have even set themselves on fire and died to prevent their houses or businesses from being demolished, in cases that have shocked the nation.
Li said the electric power bureau in Hunan’s Yongzhou City fired the four in December 2008 on charges of absenteeism, which he said were wrong.
They tried to have their case heard at the city’s committee for labor disputes, which rebuffed them, saying they had never worked for the electricity bureau.
Last month, they filed a lawsuit against their former employer, but a court in Hunan rejected it, the report said.
Li alleged that the four had also received death threats from local government officials in Hunan, and after all legal avenues were exhausted, they decided to travel to Beijing as a last resort, it said.
Under a system dating from imperial times, Chinese people can petition government authorities in Beijing over injustices or unresolved disputes.
However, many such petitioners complain of official unresponsiveness to their concerns, while others report being detained by authorities and kicked out of the capital to be sent home.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique