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| One of Zhou Jie’s family members, Zhou Mei. The Zhou family suffered persecution after they tried to protect their land rights. (Photo: ChinaAid) |
ChinaAid
(Laixi, Shandong—March 18, 2019) The son of a Shandong-based minister left a city at the beginning of the month in order not to be monitored during China’s Two Sessions.
The Two Sessions, or the meetings of China’s two major political organizations, the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, took place earlier this month and prompted China to strictly monitor individuals deemed sensitive as part of security efforts. Some of these individuals are people who are targeted for their peaceful beliefs.
Zhou Jie, the son of persecuted minister Zhou Dixian, left Laixi, Shandong, in order to avoid being monitored. Even still, Zhou Jie’s wife reported that multiple police officers inspected their home without showing a warrant, claiming they had come to check the hukou, or household registration.
“Police said that every household should register when they inspected my place,” Zhou Jie’s wife said. “I stopped by my neighbors’, and they said that they were not inspected. The police came to my place only, and the purpose was to check whether or not Zhou Jie was home. Why did the police station send four people to check the hukou? It was unnecessary, and two would have sufficed.”
Zhou Jie’s wife, who was not named in the report ChinaAid received, worried about her husband’s sister as well, who lives in Beijing and whose phone has been turned off.
In March 2017, Zhou Dixian and his wife were seized in Beijing when they tried to protect their rights to their land. They were placed under criminal detention and arrested on provoking troubles charges. Zhou Dixian was tried on Jan. 16, 2018, and sentenced to two years and one month in prison on Oct. 12. His wife received a two-year-and-three-month sentence.
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