ESWN translates the interview yWeekend had earlier this month with released journalist Gao Qinrong, before the story got officially banned in China. Gao himself estimates he wrote 768 petition letters during his eight years in prison. His wife and others added to that.
In order to make sure that I am vindicated, I sent out at least eight letters a month, to the Central Disciplinary Committee, the National People's Congress, the Supreme Court, the Supreme Procuratorate, the Shanxi Provincial High Court and the Shanxi Provincial High Procuratorate. Each letter described the unjust treatment that I had received and explained in the legal sense that the three charges against me were trumped up. Each letter was as long as 3,000 characters. I wrote like that for eight years. That would make 768 letters in total! I wrote so much that my hand was blistered. My fellow inmates noted: "This guy is petitioning every day." I did it because I wanted to be vindicated.
But none of these letters received a reply. I was in despair. There was no place left in the world to talk reason. I don't know if it was because the prison never sent my letters out, or some other reason. I thought about dying. But I thought that my death would only make it easy on those people!
I would seldom use that qualification, but this is a must-read story.
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