Since former Chinese Communist Party Secretary Zhao Ziyang’s death on January 17, people have come from all over China to Beijing to show their condolences and appeal to the current administration for their personal state of affairs. According to human rights activists in Beijing, these people are being closely monitored.

On January 21, a group or than 100 appealers expressing condolences was detained by police. At the time of this article, they haven’t made it back to their temporary homes in the “appeals village.” Internal sources report they have been detained at a secret location and that the authorities are doing a political background check on them. Most of them will be sentenced to three years in forced labor camps.

On January 22, police arrested more than 200 people. To the people who were arrested, the police said, “Don't you know Zhao Ziyang was a political prisoner? You guys are assembling to see a political prisoner, what are you planning to do? You want to overthrow the government? Can’t you see who owns this country? If we don’t rule over you, who do we rule over? Raise your hands, stand against the wall, we are going to take your pictures one by one, and then get into the vehicle. You think Zhao Ziyang needs you to send condolence messages? Look at yourselves, you think you stinking people understand what politics is all about?”

Where there is repression, there is resistance! The authority’s repression didn’t scare students and professors of the higher education institutions. These people who uphold justice and desire democracy came to Zhao Ziyang’s home, offering their condolences to this leader who was not willing to suppress people even before his death. These people’s deeds created big waves in Beijing. People are impressed with them, many nodded their heads in affirmation, saying, “You guys are great, you did what we wanted to do, You represent our hearts and we should thank you for your deeds!”

An appealing citizen from Xuzhou city of Anhui province who was wearing a white flower in front of his chest, male, in his 50s, was hit by an automobile in the road. According the eyewitness, it seemed that the driver might have killed him intentionally. From the location of incident, it cannot be concluded that it was accidental.

Wang Chiyuan, a citizen appealing from Fancheng of Henan province was brutally beaten by the police at the front door of the high appeals office. He lost consciousness. One of his eyee was pushed out of its socket, and was lying on his face.

Most Beijing citizens and appealing citizens coming to Beijing feel that they don’t have any security in their lives. They are struggling in a terrible environment. Their rights to life, health or property could be taken at any time.

An observer reported that even under such large scale police suppression, at the southern station area many Falun Gong flyers have appeared, stating, “The world needs truthfulness-compassion-tolerance.”