RFA, 8 August 2013

An ethnic minority Uyghur fruit-seller who was handicapped in a beating ordered by a Han Chinese local official in China’s troubled Xinjiang region has endured two and half years in jail and incessant refusals for compensation over the five years he and his family have petitioned for redress.

The beating Memtimin Mettohti, 36, received after complaining about the seizure of his watermelons and fruit cart in Hotan prefecture’s Keriye (in Chinese, Yutian) town in 2008 landed him in the hospital for six months and left him permanently handicapped and unable to work.

Dissatisfied with the compensation they received and the punishment handed to Li Rong, the then-Keriye town secretary of the ruling Chinese Communist Party who hit Memtimin Mettohti and ordered further beating, his family has petitioned on his case in government offices from the county to the state level.

But their appeals have been rejected from Keriye to Beijing, with Memtimin Mettohti spending two and a half years in jail for “obstructing” police actions and “disturbing social stability” after petitioning over his case in the Chinese capital.

Memtimin Mettohti’s father, who has continued to press for justice in the case after being told by Xinjiang governor Nur Bekri to drop his complaints, recounted the five years of petitioning that have left the family bankrupt and emotionally broken.

“Over these past five years of petitioning, I haven’t found any law and order,” he said in an interview with RFA’s Uyghur Service.

“We are totally out of money due to medical bills and petitioning expenses from the past five years,” he said.

Beaten in the town office

The family’s problems began in June 2008, when local officials in Keriye confiscated Memtimin Mettohti’s watermelon cart in the town bazaar, saying he did not have a permit to vend there, according to his father.

Memtimin Mettohti went to Li’s office to complain, demanding the return of the cart and watermelons and telling Li his family’s livelihood had been taken away.

The two got into an argument, and Li hit him and ordered three men working for him to further beat him up, his father said.

“He hit my son’s ear with his fist and ordered people in office to beat my son, shouting, “Beat him, and if he dies, it is my responsibility,’” Mettohti Rejep said.

The four men—three Uyghurs and one Han Chinese—beat Memtimin Mettohti until he passed out, then left him on the street outside the government offices, where passers-by found him and took him to the hospital.

Doctors found blood in his brain and the family took Memtimin Mettohti to the Xinjiang capital Urumqi for six months of treatment, but he did not fully recover and was left handicapped and with problems speaking.

“My son is still not able to speak clearly or walk straight and he is handicapped. He is unable to work and I am the one taking care of him and my grandchildren,’” Mettohti Rejep said.

Official discipline

Mettohti Rejep complained about the case to the Keriye county government, where officials told him the county had investigated the incident and removed Li from his post as Party Secretary of Keriye town.

Li had been given internal Party discipline and had acknowledged his wrongdoing, they told him.

But when Mettohti Rejep returned to Keriye from Urumqi months later, he learned Li had been moved over to the county religious affairs department and appointed its head—effectively receiving a promotion.

“I was dissatisfied with the government’s decision to give Li Rong so-called ‘internal discipline’ and with the reimbursement of our medical bills,’’ Mettohti Rejep said.

Li has used the town government budget to reimburse medical bills incurred for Memtimin Mettohti in Keriye, but did not cover any of the extensive treatment he received in Urumqi, he said.

Jailed

Angry at the lack of discipline given to Li and dissatisfied with the reimbursement, Mettohti Rejep sent Memtimin Mettohti and his younger brother to petition the central government in Beijing in the summer of 2009.

After the two visited the office, the Hotan prefectural government sent police to collect them in Beijing and bring them back home.

En route from Beijing, Memtimin Mettohti got in a fight with one of his police escorts and was put in jail upon arrival in Hotan.

In August 2009, a Keriye county court sentenced him to two and a half years in prison for “illegally leaving the region to petition, disturbing social stability, obstructing the police from carrying out their duties,” according to his father.

“During the trial, the facts about my son’s injury and his petitioning were presented, but Li Rong’s wrongdoing was never mentioned.”

The county, prefectural, and regional courts have rejected appeals against the sentence, he said.

Petitioning in Urumqi

While his son was in jail, Memtimin Rejep took the family’s grievances about Li and compensation for Memtimin Mettohti to the petitions department of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

With the office refusing to accept his petition, he slept outside the government building for weeks.

“Every day policemen would pick me up and move me away from the doors of the government building, but I returned to the spot again and again,” he said.

“They detained me and locked me up for a week. But I didn’t give up on my petition to sue Li Rong and get compensation for my son’s unfair injury.”

Rebuffed by Xinjiang governor

In November 2009, with the help of a lawyer, Mettohti Rejep secured a meeting with Xinjiang governor Nur Bekri—the top ethnic Uyghur official in a region plagued by ethnic tensions—who he had hoped would censure Li.

But Nur Bekri told him to “forget the Han Chinese,” meaning Li, and seek discipline for the three Uyghur cadres involved in the beating instead, Mettohti Rejep said.

“Nur Bekri openly said that Li Rong first of all is Han Chinese and second of all has done great work, so therefore he could not punish Li,” he said.

Released

Now, more than a year after Memtimin Mettohti was released from his two and a half years in jail, the family has gone bankrupt from their years of petitioning, Mettohti Rejep said.

“It has been [more than a year] now since my son completed his sentence and was released, but he is still unable to work and rests in bed at home,” he said.

Memtimin Mettohti said he plans to keep petitioning in Urumqi, next time bringing a rake to “dig up justice” from the government.

Reported by Shohret Hoshur for RFA’s Uyghur Service. Translated by Dolkun Kamberi. Written in English by Rachel Vandenbrink.

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/petitioner-08072013192747.html