As discontentment and disillusionment grows, petitioners are taking to dangerous direct protest. From AP, via MSNBC:
“We are the government’s sacrificial lambs,” said Li, sitting on a bed in a cheap, dorm-style hotel popular with petitioners. “There is a part of society that has gotten rich, but it’s been at our expense. You could say their way to prosperity was paved with people like us.”
Li Chunxia is six months pregnant but has no job, health care or pension. In the afternoon, she and other petitioners sorted through restaurant garbage looking for salvageable vegetables to cook for dinner.
For the past three years, she has made repeated trips to Beijing from her home in China’s central Henan province and, like many petitioners, has appealed to dozens of agencies with no result.
For more on China’s petitioners, see this past CDT post.
