On December 10th, World Human Rights Day, Chinese activists Cui Qun and Cui Hong exposed on social media that they have been long restricted in their personal freedom due to their human rights advocacy, with no regard for human rights.
Cui Qun told Epoch Times, “Another Human Rights Day has come, and there are many grassroots people like me facing similar situations. We talk about the rule of law, we talk about human rights, but where are the human rights of ordinary people?”
In 2015, during the requisition process at the 142nd base in Hongkou District, Shanghai, the Housing Security and Housing Management Bureau conducted illegal requisition under the guise of “public interest,” but the actual land use was designated for “commercial and office purposes.”
Cui Qun’s land was requisitioned without fair and just compensation, and her legitimate rights to nearby resettlement were deprived. Out of helplessness, she began to petition to fight for legal rights, but was repeatedly intercepted, kidnapped, subjected to violence, and had her phone and valuable items like jade necklaces maliciously damaged by local authorities.
She has been illegally detained in various black prisons multiple times, even detained in an office space at 104 Jiaxing Road in Hongkou District, Shanghai. To this day, she has been illegally detained 11 times, totaling 263 days.
During her detention, she suffered brutal beatings multiple times, resulting in partial deafness in both ears, a fractured ring finger on her left hand, causing significant financial and physical damage and harm both mentally and physically.
“The Hongkou Sub-bureau of the Shanghai Public Security Bureau not only participated in the illegal detention, but also refused to register my complaint after reporting the case, neither filing a case nor issuing a notice of rejection. They even abused their power to retaliate against me, accusing me of ‘provoking troubles,’ handcuffing and shackling me, and incarcerating me in the Shanghai Hongkou Detention Center.”
Shanghai activist Cui Hong has faced similar hardships. In 2003, Baoshan District Gu Village Industrial Company in Shanghai, without obtaining a demolition permit or having the qualifications to demolish, collaborated with Baoshan District Construction Land Affairs Office in Gu Village Town to unlawfully demolish a base in the industrial park in Gu Village Town. This demolition was unannounced, their only house was demolished without fair compensation or resettlement.
Furthermore, after working in river cleaning in Baoshan, Shanghai for six years, she was found to have cancer. Her employer used deceitful and fraudulent means to illegally terminate her employment contract, without providing economic compensation or medical assistance, leaving her without a source of livelihood and medical care, plunging her into hardship. She had to resort to complaining to relevant departments to uphold her legitimate rights.
However, the Baoshan District Gu Village Petition Office in Shanghai retaliated against her. Between 2019 and 2023, she was illegally detained five times, totaling 107 days. During her detentions, she was subjected to cruel violence, resulting in a fractured sternum and a broken front tooth.
She was also illegally searched multiple times, her phone, purse, and personal belongings were taken away, valuable items (three phones) and other personal items were damaged. These actions resulted in significant economic losses for her and severe physical and mental harm.
Cui Hong said, “The Baoshan Sub-bureau of the Shanghai Public Security Bureau not only participated in the illegal detention, but also abused their authority, forcing me, who has terminal cancer, into criminal detention in the Baoshan Detention Center under the pretext of ‘provoking troubles.'”
“On World Human Rights Day, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin pointed out that there is no ‘supremacy’ in human rights issues, and only the people of a country are the arbiters of their human rights cause. As a member of the ordinary people in China, how should those who have similar experiences to mine evaluate the human rights situation? Where exactly are human rights? Must human rights also be divided into different tiers?”
“I hope the field of human rights in China is not an unattainable Chinese dream, nor a grand yet illusory myth, but something that allows each and every person to truly feel fairness and justice!” she said.