Governmental Thugs: China’s Black Taxi Entrapment Scandal
It would seem that not all thugs wear masks and point guns in our faces.
Case in point; Sun Zhongjie, a driver who became the latest victim of the governmental “hooks” of Shanghai who “work” for the Traffic Management Bureau.
Being a good Samaritan, when a tearful stranger approached Sun on a cold winter night and claimed he could not get a bus or taxi, he felt sorry for him and agreed to take him the short distance suggested. When they arrived, the man threw him a small bill, which Sun had not asked for, and grabbed his keys.
That was the beginning of his nightmare.
The way these thugs operate is that they entice a driver who is not a licensed taxi driver to provide a ride. They use any ploy necessary and when the drive succumbs, he is then accused of operating a “black taxi.” The hook is paid several hundred yuan for the ruse but the driver is severely fined (10,000 or more yuan, ($1,400 US) by the local government.
The traffic police arrived on cue and dragged poor Sun out of his car. They detained him for several hours without showing him any identification. The police never told him what he was being accused of and released him only after he was forced to sign three receipts, which they wouldn’t let him read!
It was only after the fact that Sun learned that he had been accused of “black taxi” operation and it didn’t come from the police. The information came from other victims of the “hook” who were also brought to the police van and detained.
When this leaked to the press, it enraged the public of Shanghai. Public outcry for Sun was enhanced, to say the very least, when the young man, in an effort to condemn police entrapment, chopped off his finger.
This sparked a viral uproar that shook authorities to their core, revealing the power of public protest in a nation where negative opinions about governmental policies are kept under wraps.
Protests organized online have filled the need denied by the banning of public dissent. There is no more effective tool for putting pressure and getting results from public officials.
“This is the era of disguised accountability. That means holding government officials accountable by relying on the Internet rather than on traditional means like elections and the checks by the Congress,” said Hu Xingdou, a sociology professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology.
What say YOU?
(Link)
By MDeeDubroff on 25-04-2010
