Chinese Whistleblower in Guangdong Suffers Ruthless Reprisal

[TurnToStone]

Chinese Whistleblower in Guangdong Suffers Ruthless Reprisal

by Peter Barefoot on Monday, July 15, 2013

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From Sina:
Guangdong Part-Time Whistleblower Has Fingers Hacked off and Splashed with Acid, Right Eye Blinded

Southern Metropolis Daily report – There’s an Uncle Qu in Guangzhou who exposes the personal use of government vehicles, and there’s also a part-time whistle blower in Huizhou that goes by the name “Uncle Ou of Huiyang”. Yesterday morning [July 8], at about 9:50am, Huizhou’s famous netizen “Uncle Ou of Huiyang” (real name Li Jianxin) went out by car. After he was hit and stopped by another car while in a remote industrial park in Huiyang District Yonghu Town, he was attacked by 3 men with acid and hacked with knives. In the end, a large area on his back was burnt, two of his fingers were chopped off, his wrists were injured, and his right eye was blinded.

Hit and stopped by another car in a remote area, and attacked

Yesterday morning [July 8], at about 9:50am, Li Jianxin said goodbye to his wife Li Guiqiong at their home in Huiyang District Yonghu Town. He was going to take his 6-year-old son to play in Huicheng Danshui. When he drove his car to an intersection near Hui’ao Avenue in the Yihu Industrial Park in Yonghu Town, his car was hit by another car behind him.

At about 10am in the morning, Li Guiqiong received a call from a woman who claimed to be a waste yard worker, “your husband asked me to call you, he was attacked”.

When Li Guiqiong, Li Jianxin’s younger brother Li Jianhuang, and some other people arrived at the scene, they saw that Li Jianxin was lying in a pool of blood by the car. Near his two wrists were two knife wounds, two of his fingers were hacked off, and his right eye was a mess of blood and flesh. Li Jianxin was still able to talk at that time, and he told his younger brother that when he got out to check the damage after being hit and stopped by another car, 3 men got out of the other car, first splashed acid on his back, and then hacked at him with knives. Because his son was in the car, he didn’t dare flee.

This incident happened at a remote location. Southern Metropolis Daily reporters found the waste yard worker named Zhang Li (pseudonym) who called Li Guiqiong. Zhang Li was in her dormitory when she heard someone crying for help. After she came out, she saw a wounded man lying on the ground. A little boy got out of the car, crying in tears, “daddy, I don’t want to go out and play ever again”. The little boy said there were 3 men who attacked his father.
[...]

“Uncle Ou of Huiyang” is a professional whistle-blower in Huiyang

“Uncle Ou of Huiyang” Li Jianxin is 47 years old, lives in Huizhou City Huiyang District Yonghu Town. A search for relevant information on “Uncle Ou of Huiyang” on Huizhou’s popular online discussion forum Xizi Forum shows that his ID was registered on 2012 June 29, and from 2012 August 4 to July 6 of this year, he has published a total of 95 posts. Amongst them, at least 80% is the reporting of various problems in Huiyang, with most of them being corruption involving village officials, but the scope of his reporting also including excessive fees/charges by schools, contamination of reservoirs, etc. In the hearts of many netizens, “Uncle Ou of Huiyang” is already a professional whistle-blower.

The sections where Li Jianxin usually uses “Uncle Ou of Huiyang” to publish posts are “Huiyang/Daya Bay” and “Netizens into Politics”. Normally, he doesn’t provide the full names of those he is exposing but he does give their family names and work positions. According to a media source in Huizhou, among the netizens of Huizhou, it is rare to see someone expose problems of so many kinds.

According to netizen “武当山人”, in recent years, “Uncle Ou of Huiyang” has persisted in exposing criminal elements and collusion between government and business in the Huiyang area, which has gotten him in the bad graces of many people. Of course, there have been many people denouncing him as publishing posts for money, accusing him of being paid to defame others, etc. but at the very least and in most cases, he had gathered enough information/evidence, or else he would have been sued for defamation long ago.

Southern Metropolis Daily reporters interviewed Li Jianxin twice before this. He told the Southern Metropolis Daily reporters that the reason for he calls himself “Uncle Ou of Huiyang” is because he wanted to follow the example of Uncle Qu in Guangzhou who has been investigating and exposing public problems for a long time. However, he hoped that he could expose even more problems, not just the “personal use of government vehicles”.

 

[PeterCriss]

Chinese whistleblower blinded in acid attack

An amateur Chinese whistleblower, who spent his free time embarrassing Communist party officials by posting pictures of their luxury cars on the internet, was rammed by a car, blinded with acid, and deprived of two of his fingers.

Photo: EPA

By Malcolm Moore, Beijing
8:52AM BST 17 Jul 2013

Li Jianxin, 47, is in hospital after being attacked earlier this month, it has emerged. After his car was rammed from behind, three men took him to a remote industrial park in the southern city of Huizhou, doused him with acid and hacked at him with knives.

A woman in a worker’s dormitory nearby emerged to find Mr Li lying on the ground in a pool of his own blood and his six-year-old son wailing in his car.

Li Jianxin lies in a hospital bed after the acid attack in Huizhou (www.nandu.com)

Mr Li used the handle “Uncle Ou of Huiyang” to post dozens of reports of corruption on a popular local internet forum.

His younger brother, Li Jianhuang, said several members of one prominent family in Huiyang, many of whom work for the local government, had been particularly embarrassed by Mr Li.

“My brother reported more than ten cases relating to this family,” he told The Daily Telegraph on Tuesday night.

“They got their jobs through connections and bribery but are in fact extremely incompetent,” he said.

But he said he was not hopeful that the police will find his brother’s attackers. “The pressure from the local government is enormous because the influence of that family is huge. My only wish is to see my brother recover,” he said.

Li Jianxin is now scheduled for a second operation to give him a fake eye and a skin graft and remains in a stable condition in Huizhou Municipal Central hospital.

Xi Jinping, China’s president, has called for whistleblowers to help in the fight against the endemic corruption inside the Communist Party.

But his rhetoric has been accompanied by harsh treatment for those brave enough to take up his challenge. On Wednesday, a Beijing-based lawyer named Xu Zhiyong was detained by police and had his three computers and mobile phone confiscated.

Last month Mr Xu tweeted that he had been kept under house arrest since signing an open letter calling for the release of eight people who had campaigned for government officials to publish their assets.

Additional reporting by Adam Wu