Petitions official expelled by Party over graft claims
Print Edition
A FORMER senior official in charge of China’s controversial petitioning system has been expelled from the Party after it accused him of taking bribes, adultery and other violations of the law.
The Party’s anti-graft watchdog said Xu Jie, formerly deputy head of the State Bureau for Letters and Calls, was responsible for a series of cases “severely violating Party discipline and the law.”
An investigation found that Xu abused his position by demanding and receiving a large amount of bribes, the Party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said in a statement on its website.
Xu is also an adulterer, the watchdog added, without giving details. Party officials are supposed to be morally upstanding and can be punished for morality issues such as adultery.
Xu will be handed over to judicial authorities to be dealt with “in accordance with the law.”
The system of petitions dates back to imperial times as a means whereby citizens can bring grievances to the attention of government officials by bypassing the legal system or authorities, especially at local level.
But petitioners who travel to Beijing to pursue their cases are often rounded up by local police and forced to return to home. Worse still, they can be held in “black jails,” unlawful secret detention facilities where detainees can be subjected to beatings, sleep and food deprivation and psychological abuse.
Meanwhile, the Party chief of Guangzhou, China’s sixth-biggest city, is being investigated for corruption.
Wan Qinliang is being probed for “serious violations of discipline,” the graft watchdog said in a statement on its website yesterday, without giving details.
As Guangzhou’s Party secretary, Wan ranks above the mayor and is the most senior official of the city, capital of south China’s Guangdong Province and Hong Kong’s neighbor.
In another announcement yesterday, the watchdog said the former Party boss of Ya’an City in southwest China had been sacked for taking bribes, as well as having improper sexual relationships with married women.
China is in the midst of a sweeping campaign against deep-rooted corruption launched by President Xi Jinping after he became head of the Party two years ago. He warned then that the problem is so serious it could affect the Party’s very survival.
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