In 2003, on a flyover in Beijing, Luo Xiang, then 26 years old and still studying for his PhD at Peking University, happened to meet an old woman from Henan Province who asked for directions. The old woman had been walking for more than four hours from Beijing West Station to Shuangan Mall. Her son, who was working in Beijing, was arrested by a police patrol when he returned home late at night. 20 days later, the child’s innocence was proven, but his fingers were ruined, and he had a complete mental breakdown and became insane. When Luo Xiang said he would take a taxi to take her to the legal aid center, the old lady flung herself down on her knees for him.
“She asked about my status, and when I told her I was still a student, she cried once again, choking up and saying: ‘If my family wasn’t poor, my son would be a student now. university student, he wouldn’t have suffered this.’ “
When she arrived at the legal aid center, Luo Xiang wanted to accompany her up, but the old lady bowed to him and said you are still young, don’t get involved in such things that may affect your future.
Eighteen years later, Luo Xiang, who already has millions of fans, recalled in a video program the incident when he met the old lady by chance. He said that he is still ashamed. One thing he did not disclose to the old lady is that he had already passed the bar exam, is able to help the old lady, but because he did not want to get into trouble, so the words did not come out.
The old woman in Henan, who has no money or power, can help her son get justice?
This is a question that is not difficult to answer.
In 2003, the year when Luo Xiang met the old lady, a lot of things happened. For example, the Sun Zhigang incident, such as the Li Siyi incident.
On the night of March 17, 2003, Sun Zhigang, a college student from Hubei who had just arrived in Guangzhou to work, was sent to a shelter by the police on his way to an Internet cafe because he did not have a temporary residence permit. Three days later, Sun Zhigang died as a result of a brutal beating by the staff and other shelter staff.
The story was reported by the brave Southern Metropolis Daily and caused an uproar. Sina hung in the headlines for two or three days, and several scholars petitioned the National People’s Congress to review the unconstitutionality of the internment and deportation system in this regard.
On June 20 of that year, the State Council issued the “Measures for the Administration of Relief for Vagrants and Beggars Living without Help in Cities”, and “shelter” became The “Measures for the Reception and Dispatch of Urban Vagrants and Beggars”, which had been in operation for 21 years, was abolished.
The incident of Li Siyi in Chengdu is more tragic than that of Sun Zhigang, but the impact is much smaller. 18 years later, few people may know about this incident.
On the evening of June 21, 2003, the residents of a block of courtyard 65, Qing Jiangxi Road, Qing Baijiang District, Chengdu, finally identified the source of the stench. The stench, for several days, has been bothering them.
The first floor of the third unit, No. 25, is the residence of drug-addicted single mother Li Guifang and her three-year-old daughter Li Siyi.
The police, who rushed over on the phone, entered the kitchen from the balcony and then the living room via the kitchen. After entering the living room, the police found that the bright latch of the wooden door of the master bedroom was tethered with a woolen cord. After untangling the wool, the police pushed the door felt resistance, pushed open half, found the body of a little girl behind the door.
The scene is horrible.
Post-mortem examination showed that the deceased “hair has mostly fallen off …… body highly corrupt, abdomen and limbs leather-like, head and face, neck and perineum have a large number of flies maggots attached … …”
The little girl was ruled out the possibility of death by violent blows and death by poisoning, and the public prosecution unanimously concluded that she died of hunger and thirst.
The case is not complicated.
On June 4, two friends asked Li Guifang to have lunch with them. Li Siyi followed her mother, and this was the last meal she ate.
After the meal, Li Guifang sent the child home first. In those days, Li Siyi was sick and had just had a hangnail injection in the morning, so she fell asleep soon after arriving home. Li Guifang tied the master bedroom door with a woolen rope, then locked the door and went out.
It was after 1:00 pm.
Li Guifang has been out of work for a long time, and is a drug addict, and a petty thief. This time she was caught stealing from a supermarket next door in Jintang County and was sent to the Jintang County Suburban Police Station.
The police knew at first glance that she was a drug addict, and the urine test proved it. In the first statement, Li Guifang said that there was only one little girl at home and no one was looking after her. The police officer on duty reported this, but the deputy chief of the police station, as well as the duty leader of the Jintang County Public Security Bureau, still approved the mandatory drug rehabilitation of Li Guifang.
This was around 5:00 p.m.
At around 10 p.m., the police station sent two police cars to escort Li Guifang and another drug addict to a drug rehabilitation center in Chengdu.
According to Li Guifang, she pulled on the car door and refused to get in, begging the police to let her go home and settle her children. After getting into the car, she kept asking to be allowed to go home when passing Qingbaijiang, to settle the child before going with them. She also asked the police to call her second sister and ask her to help take care of the child. Li Guifang kept asking, but no one paid attention. When the car crossed Qingbaijiang, Li Guifang started slamming her head against the car door continuously. The police finally agreed to call. But no one answered her sister’s phone.
The police called the duty phone number of the police station where Li Guifang’s home is located. It was around 10:30 p.m. on June 4, and the second call the Unity Village police station received in connection with the case.
Unity Village Police Station is less than 200 meters from Li Guifang’s second sister’s house, and only one block from Li Guifang’s home, but they did nothing.
In the early morning of June 5, after completing various formalities, Li Guifang again asked the police officer who sent her to implement the child’s affairs. The police said that they had told the Unity Village police station.
Next, from the morning of June 5 until the evening of June 21, no one asked Li Guifang’s family had a little girl unattended to this matter.
After the death of her grandfather, Li Guifang is the only one Li Siyi can rely on. The most important thing is that the people in the community are the most rejected and despised people, and no one interacts with her.
But Li Siyi is very attractive. She has a round face and big eyes, always with two small ponytails on her head, and when she sees young people, she calls them aunts and uncles, and when she sees old people, she calls them grandparents. Coming to the world for more than three years, she did not leave a photo. Only from the descriptions of neighbors, sketching her appearance.
This poor child was often locked in the house, because of hunger and full meals, and grew very thin. Sometimes when she was hungry, she asked for food from passing neighbors through the bars outside the window.
Since noon on June 4, the three-year-old girl has been locked in the house. The innermost bedroom, separated by two doors, her cries, the people outside could not hear.
Afterwards, people found at the scene: her small feet have been kicked swollen, the door left a few thin blood marks, the right hand nails have varying degrees of damage, red and swollen throat, cabinets were rummaged through, she may have been frightened at night had hidden in the closet. There was a small stool placed in front of the bedroom window, but the window was not opened. The feces and urine were carefully placed in toilet paper ……
This little girl kept begging for her life, but eventually died slowly, in a busy city, in a neighborhood of several thousand people.
Throughout the process, if one police officer had made one more phone call and been willing to take a few more steps …… Li Siyi would not have died a tragic death, but none did.
The police officer who was indifferent in the face of Li Guifang’s pleading on his knees, and whose lawyer was pleading for his innocence, said that perhaps Li Siyi died before her mother left the house.
Wang Tieqian, then secretary of the Political and Legal Committee of the Chengdu Municipal Committee, wrote in a note of approval: “An innocent little life starved to death in our ‘cold-blooded ‘ hands. “
More than a year later, the two police officers involved were sentenced to three and two years in prison respectively for negligence.
The Li Siyi incident shocked the public, and some even went on a hunger strike for a day to appreciate her plight.
Kang Xiaoguang, then a researcher at the National Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, also went to Chengdu to investigate the case, and spent five or six days in November 2003 visiting the family committee, police station and street office of Li Siyi’s community, as well as the Women’s Federation, the Communist Youth League, private charity organizations, public security agencies, courts and news organizations. Direct interviews included Li Siyi’s neighbors, the head of the family committee, government officials, judges, journalists who had covered the incident, as well as cab drivers, hotel attendants, shopping mall salesmen, and airline ladies.
In those days, on various occasions in Chengdu, Kang asked the same questions to all kinds of people: Do you know Li Siyi? What do you think about this incident? What do you plan to do about it?
Most people answered: I remember a little, the child died tragically, but I have no plans. Some people knew nothing, but they were not willing to ask more questions. Kang Xiaoguang deliberately brought up the topic, often ending it as soon as it began.
A month later, he wrote a book, 70,000 to 80,000 words. Several publishers found it excessive, but Kang Xiaoguang firmly disagreed to revise it. He printed 3,000 copies at his own expense to give to people he felt “could be saved”. The title page of the book reads, “No one is spared, we are Li Siyi’s hell! “
“Child, if life is accidental, and death is predestined.
Then your short life
What a terrible misunderstanding!
……
While you were crying
The world’s ears are lost en masse”
An old professor at Tsinghua University said, “I read this with tears in my eyes. “
Except for a few media outlets as well as Kang Xiaoguang, and some unnamed netizens, Li Siyi’s case quickly fell into silence after a few days of sensationalism.
In Sun Zhigang’s case, his university classmates gave their full support, three law doctors petitioned the National People’s Congress, and professors in Guangzhou and Beijing contributed money and efforts to hold meetings, write articles and issue statements. Lawyers also stepped forward, not only daring to take the case, but also serving for free. Sun Zhigang’s family was awarded at least $500,000, and perhaps more. This amount of money is no longer worth a human life.
In Li Siyi’s case, there was not as much attention and relief, probably because she was not a college student. Li Guifang received 100,000 yuan in compensation, and then it was gone.
The son of the old lady mentioned by Luo Xiang also went unnoticed. If he hadn’t been poor and couldn’t go to college, if he hadn’t been a lowly laborer, he wouldn’t have been arrested for no reason, and he wouldn’t have been stimulated to go crazy, and her elderly mother wouldn’t have come to Beijing to seek justice for her son.
The good thing is, not everyone in this society forgets the weak. Just like Luo Xiang’s popularity, of course, because of his good class, but mainly because of his pursuit of justice and compassion for the underdog, infected countless people.
Xiao Siyi is the poorest of the poor, the weakest of the weak. 18 years later, looking back on her tragic ordeal is not a sickness or a rehashing of old scores.
“To raise a cry for the voiceless, to defend the rights of the powerless, this is what we are facing, the most serious social and political issue. “Kang Xiaoguang’s voice back then is still relevant today.
June 10 may be the day of Li Siyi’s sacrifice, as it is not possible to determine the time of her death. On her tombstone, there is no photo, and even her name is plausible. After the place of origin, there is a bracket with no account.
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