北京两会：BBC记者采访遭暴打被迫签认罪书

choi

沙磊, 北京两会：BBC记者采访遭暴打被迫签认罪书. BBC Chinese, Mar 3, 2017
http://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/chinese-news-39155109

, which is translated from

John Sudworth, China congress: BBC Team Forced to Sign Confession. BBC, Mar 3, 2017 (Publication of the English-language report precedes that of the Chinese one by seventeen hours).
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-39137293

Quote:

"We'd arranged to meet a woman in her village -湖南省娄底市新化县上梅镇新渡村] in China's central Hunan Province and to then travel with her [as a petitioner 访民] by train to Beijing[, specifically State Bureau of Letters and Calls 国家信访局], filming as we went.  But we never did get to meet our interviewee.

"Yang Linghua's 杨灵华 family.  The BBC interviewed her sister, Yang Qinghua 杨青华, three years ago on a petitioning trip to Beijing.  The women allege that their land was stolen from them and their father, in the ensuing dispute, was beaten so badly he eventually died.  But there's a particular reason Ms Yang was trying to reach Beijing this week.  On Sunday [Mar 5, 2017], China begins its annual parliamentary session, The National People's Congress (NPC).  The event is like a magnet for petitioners who hope to use the grand occasion to promote their cause.  Beijing * * * would rather keep this ragged army of the dispossessed away from its carefully choreographed piece of political theatre and so provincial officials the length and breadth of the land, are tasked with stopping petitioners making the journey.

"Ms Yang's sister 杨青华 and mother had already been placed under unofficial house arrest.  But as she herself had never been to Beijing to petition before, she felt she would be free from suspicion and, at the very least, able to board a train.  She was wrong.  As soon as we arrived in Yang Linghua's village it was clear they were expecting us.

"But the irony is, the harder China works to stem the flow during its national parliament, the more incentive there is for people to come. * * * the desperation of their own provincial governments to catch them gives those who make it to Beijing a certain leverage.  Ignored all year round, often by the same officials they're petitioning against, they suddenly find themselves on the receiving end of offers to negotiate.

Note: "provincial officials the length and breadth of the land, are tasked with stopping petitioners"
(a) the length and breadth of somewhere: "If you travel the length and breadth of a place, you go to every part of it  <She travelled the length and breadth of Ireland looking for her missing brother>"
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/ ... readth-of-somewhere
(b) It comes from the Bible.

Genesis 13:17
http://biblehub.com/genesis/13-17.htm
(King James: "Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee")