Another Forced Abortion Tragedy—“My poor wife, my poor child”

ChinaAid has learned that on April 6, 2012, in Xianyou county, Fujian province, which is notorious for its forced abortions, Wu Liangjie’s wife was forcibly detained and abducted to a hospital, where her nearly eight-month unborn child was forcibly aborted.  Now Wu Liangjie has arrived in Beijing to seek legal assistance from the well-known young Christian lawyer Zhang Kai.  He also met with Deng Jiyuan, husband of abortion victim Feng Jianmei from Shaanxi province.  

(Photo shows Zhang Kai with the two fathers determined to seek justice for their wives and murdered children; left, Wu Liangjie; right, DengJiyuan. Double click to enlarge)

Zhang Kai wrote on his blog, “The two fathers, Deng Jiyuan and Wu Liangjie, both came a long way to meet with me.  They both had a seven or eight-month [unborn] child forcibly aborted.  Thanks to all the many netizens for caring about them.  Hope that with our efforts, after a few years, such tragedies will never happen again. 

Below is a letter from Wu Liangjie forwarded by Yang Zhizhu – “My poor wife, my poor child”

Note from Yang Zhizhu: Wu Liangjie arrived in Beijing on the morning of July 5. 

Translated by China Aid Association
Professor Yang:
My name is Wu Liangjie.  My family has suffered a misfortune.  A group of people broke in and killed the eight-month unborn child in my wife’s womb with an injection of poison.  After that, my wife and I have had nightmares every day in which we relive what happened on that day.   It happened in my hometown – Dongjing village, Daji Town, Xianyou county, Fujian province.  Previously I had drifted about in other places for over 10 years and only occasionally went back to my hometown, such as during [Chinese] New Year.  I heard that many officials in my hometown were corrupt, and that bribery would not help if you did not give it to the right person.  This time, I personally experienced their brutality and malice, at the price of death, the death of an unborn baby of nearly eight months.  How barbaric and vicious they are. An ancient Chinese saying goes, “even vicious tigers do not eat their cubs”.  What about us human beings? We are supposed to be people living in civilized times.  How could they have done such a thing, such a cold-blooded thing?

It was on April 6 this year that a group of people forcibly injected my wife with poison; she delivered a fully developed baby.  Before this happened, we lived in Shishi Hanjiang, which is about 120 kilometers (75 miles) from my hometown.  A month before the forced abortion, seven or eight people, including our village chief, party secretary and staff from the county family planning work team came, to Shishi Hanjiang from my hometown of Xianyou to talk to me.  They asked how far my wife was in the pregnancy.  I said “about six months”.  They said, “You need to decide whether to induce a miscarriage or pay a fine.  The fine for this year is set at 45,300 yuan (US$7,110). ” I said, “The baby is already so big, aborting it would cause my wife too much suffering and too much heartbreak. So we’ll pay.” Then they told me if I paid 30,000 yuan in three days, they would let us keep baby.  Otherwise, my wife would be seized and given an abortion.  I agreed to their terms.  As soon as they left, my father went out to borrow money.  But because we could not borrow that much so quickly, after more negotiations, they agreed that I could give them 20,000 yuan for now, and pay the rest of the fine after the child was born.  The next day, my father put 20,000 yuan in the hands of our village party secretary.  We all thought that there was no need to go in hiding since we had now paid the fine.  However, on April 3, they came to Shishi Hanjiang again and took my wife, claiming that someone tipped them off and the baby must be aborted.   I replied, “Everyone can see you’re playing tricks on me.  You took my money and you know it.  Now you’re accusing me of an unplanned birth.  Why didn’t you tell me this when I was paying the fine? We did violate China’s policy about pregnancies above the stipulated limit, but we already paid the fine.  Is there justice at all? Are singling us peasants living at the bottom of society to mistreat?”

It was already 8 or 9 p.m. when my wife was brought back to my hometown.  They held pregnant women in a small room behind a locked metal door in the town hall.  A few security guards were stationed at the door.  It was an empty room with no furniture except a bed made of wood planks.   The weather was still cold, so my sister brought over a comforter from home for my wife, but they did not even allow her to go in the room to help my wife make up the bed.  My wife was not feeling well, so two older women also locked in the room helped her make the bed and she was able to lie down.  She learned that these two women were also detained there for over-the-limit births and had been locked up there for many days.  Our village party secretary saw that the situation was deteriorating, so at noon on April 4, he secretly returned the 20,000 yuan to my uncle.  But then at about 5 p.m. the same day, he called me and told me to bring 55,000 yuan into town at 9 p.m., promising that my wife would be released as long as I pay this amount and we would be able to keep the baby.  So I went looking everywhere to borrow the money and delivered it to the county government on time that night.  The person who took the money is called Yan Renmin.  He even called his boss asking if they should accept the money, and his boss said “yes” on the phone.  He made the phone call in front of me and we clearly heard the conversation.  So I thought now we could breathe a sigh of relief because we gave the money to the town government.  After all, that’s an official local government. 

At that time, my locked-up wife became sick.  She threw up on the morning of April 6 and could not eat anything.  Those people working for the town government saw my wife’s vomit on the floor by the door and not only did they not have a kind word for her, they even told her to clean it up herself.  Just after my wife had struggled to get up, finished cleaning up the mess and was going to lie down to rest, they opened the metal door and dragged her into a vehicle.  About 60 people in seven cars took my wife straight to the Xianyou County Women and Children’s Hospital and surrounded the hospital on all sides.  The head of the group was the town deputy party secretary, surnamed Lu.  I rushed to him and begged for mercy, but it was in vain.  So I told him that my wife had asthma that runs in her family and I asked him to give my wife an electrocardiogram to find out if she could undergo abortion in case the abortion would kill both her and the baby.  He totally ignored me and just shoo-ed me outside.  So an electrocardiogram was not performed and no family members were allowed to be close to my wife.  My wife’s parents have both passed away and she only has a 75-year-old grandmother.  Even the grandmother was beat up and lost consciousness when she attempted to take a look at her granddaughter.  One of my cousins wanted to take pictures of the violent scene with his cellphone, but he was beat up and his phone was snatched away.  All of us outside all dropped to our knees begging for mercy, while inside my wife with her big belly also got on her knees begging them.  They paid absolutely no attention to us, dragged my wife into a small room, and with several people pinning her down, forcibly gave her a poisonous injection.  I heard that the injection directly went into the head of the baby.  At the beginning, the baby moved violently in my wife’s womb, probably because of the pain.  Usually, when we just get an injection in the butt with a small needle, it hurts a lot.  What is it like to have an injection to the head, the most sensitive organ of the human body? It must have caused great pain.  Then the unborn baby’s movements slowed down and became less frequent and weaker. 

On April 8 at 2 a.m., my wife went in labor.  We asked to see the baby, but they refused.  Only my wife got one last look.  At dawn of April 8, when my wife delivered the baby, there is no way to describe how she felt when she saw the baby.  An hour earlier, she could still feel the movement of the unborn baby in her womb, but now in front of her was a dead baby boy, bruised all over with some skin peeling from his face.  Her heart was completely broken! She broke into wailing the moment she saw the little corpse.  Hearing her cry, we family members were broken-hearted.  That feeling was indescribable.  I even thought of death! At that time, we were on the fifth floor of the hospital.  My wife tried to jump from the building many times and I stopped her every time. 

On April 10, my wife left the hospital with multiple bruises on her body.  During the many days she was in the hospital, she was never given an injection or antibiotics.  She contracted gynecologic disease and needs to be covered with a comforter even on hot summer nights.  What still hurts me to this day is that they did not let us keep the baby’s body.  I don’t know how they dealt with it and my fear is that they just disposed it randomly.  But who can tell them what to do?

Afterwards, they told me to come and take back the 55,000 yuan I paid earlier.  Because I had to look after my wife, I did not go immediately.  When I did go a few days later, they refused to return the money to me and wanted to force me to be sterilized.  I refused because if I went, there would be no one to look after my wife.  Then they forced me to write a letter of guarantee saying that I would go get sterilized before June 30; otherwise they would not return me the money.  They used the money to threaten me. 

I haven’t had much schooling, but I think those well-educated government personnel were very cruel, using a little life of eight-months to pave their way to promotion and wealth, using an innocent little life for career success, and abusing well-behaved peasants like us.  I have nowhere to go to plead my case! I simply don’t understand how they could be so cruel. What kind of education they receive?  It’s as if they don’t even consider us to be human beings.  Do they not have wives and children of their own at home? Each of them received higher education.  Could they really not know what a pregnant woman goes through? A living baby was killed by them in such a brutal way.  This is murder! They all left after giving my wife the injection.  Since then, none of them has ever made a phone call to express concerns or comfort to us.  They acted as if nothing had happened.  I hear people say that humans are creatures with feelings.  Is this true of them? I hope no matter how busy, government official could set aside time to visit the grassroots levels of society and see how people are living.  It is very corrupt at the grassroots level. 

My wife now is much changed.  She talks a lot less now.  She used to be a very cheerful person, but now she’s haggard and aged, like she’d suddenly aged 10 years.  I hope that my wife can leave these shadows behind soon, that she can get her physical and psychological health back, that she can get justice. I don’t how to speak with flowery words, but I know how to tell a truthful story. I just want to tell people the truth of what happened, to make everyone pay attention and prevent this kind of persecution from happening to other pregnant women.  I hope the bloody event will never happen again.  Friends, please forward this story.  Hope officials who genuinely care about ordinary people can see this story and can speak words of justice for peasants living at the bottom of society.  Thank you! I just want justice to be done.  Both I and my injured wife need justice. 

On June 29, I got a phone call from someone of the town who told me to delete my micro-blog or they would give me a hard time.  Based on my previous experience, I sensed something was wrong, so I went on the run in the middle of the night at 3 a.m. and turned off my cell phone.  The next day, they did come looking for me, and not finding me, they came back twice more.  After the third time, they realized that I had gone in hiding, so they made many of my friends and relatives say nice things to me trying to get me to delete my micro-blog.  They also threatened to charge me with the crime of “disturbing social order”.  I sensed I was in trouble, so I fled from my province.  During my days on the run, I wrote this letter to ask for help.  I hope I will get your sympathy and attention. 

Thank you!
Wu Liangjie
Phone: 152595289566

http://www.tianya.cn/publicforum/content/free/1/2622388.shtml

China Aid Association calls for more people to express concern over the injury and murder forced abortion has caused to Chinese women and babies,  and to make joint efforts for the early end of this benighted policy that brings disaster to the nation and the people.

China Aid Contacts
Rachel Ritchie, English Media Director
Cell: (432) 553-1080 | Office: 1+ (888) 889-7757 | Other: (432) 689-6985
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