Whistleblower in Guangdong Suffers Ruthless Reprisal

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”.

[…]

Comments from Sina:

一字歌 [上海]:

Pray that he’ll be safe. If the case isn’t solved [the culprits brought to justice], there’s no law in this society.

手机用户 [江西南昌]:

Society seldom provides or doesn’t provide institutional protection and the recognition of social value to people like Uncle Qu. Without them, supervision by the people [public oversight of government] is nothing but empty words.

会飞的土豆宝贝 [浙江杭州]:

As a professional whistleblower in China, one must obey the following rules: (1), Never reveal your true identity, never accept any interviews. (2), Always wear a disguise, always change your residence. (3), Prepare a lot of weapons, and adopt a “it’s either you or me” approach when facing reprisals.

手机用户 [四川成都]:

I only want to say that it’s impossible to be a good person, and this is the state of China today.

手机用户 [辽宁沈阳]:

What you’re doing is going against the government.

如意哈哈佛的世界 [上海]:

Who did this? Come on, this is way too ruthless!!!

xifenglieli [江苏泰州]:

Professional whistleblowers’ incomes are quite high. They have the sense of smell of a police dog, going around, looking for all sorts of things that are afraid of the light, and then they negotiate fees with clients through a middleman. Subjectively, this is for their own personal benefit. But from another side, they objectively deter all kinds of law-breaking behavior!

任志强 [新浪个人认证]:

You don’t know it, but it doesn’t mean it has never happened.

手机用户 [河南郑州]:

Hi, dare [the police] find out the truth?

手机用户 [广东广州]:

A moron, there are things that that you can control/meddle in?

咸鸭下咸蛋 [上海]:

If a case like this isn’t investigated and solved, [the government] will be too ashamed to face the people, and the local government officials will no longer have the people’s support.

孙月沐 [新浪个人认证]:

If this is true, who will come do something about it?!

悟道行 [广东茂名]:

The most basic common sense of a professional whisteblower is that you can’t regularly be together with your family, especially your children and parents.

陈秋雨 [福建福州]:

Exposes criminal elements and the collusion between government and business, and suffers reprisals from those who employs organized crime!

梁文道纪录 [广西南宁]:

In today’s China, those who have power and influence are a bunch of gangsters/thugs.

手机用户 [河北唐山]:

This is China’s special characteristics, don’t feel raw about it.

成一言 [河南郑州]:

You think you’re in America? In China, if you dare to do something like this, it’s only a matter of time before you lose your life, and you’ll even die very strangely, die without knowing why. And after you die, no public security organ will truly get involved. Sigh, you don’t understand the society.

手机用户 [浙江杭州]:

Enough, with these kind of things, you can’t meddle too much, [because] government officials shield one another, so what can you really do about it?

占豪 [湖北武汉]:

The criminal elements in Guangdong are indeed running wild, many things have happened in recent years, and it’s time to crack down on them!