Firmly safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of
pneumoconiosis workers! Release Comrade Wei Zhili immediately!
Since January 2018, pneumoconiosis workers have come to Shenzhen
again and again to safeguard their legitimate rights and interests.
Most of the pneumoconiosis workers come from Hunan Province and are
engaged in many industries such as blasting. (Pneumoconiosis, as the
first occupational disease, currently has about 60 million patients in
China. Most of them have been working in Shenzhen since the 1990s,
mainly engaged in pneumatic drill blasting. They have been working in
the dust environment without labor security for many years, and
unfortunately suffer from pneumoconiosis. However, because most of them
do not have labor contracts, they have built numerous landmark
buildings, so it is difficult for them to claim compensation. High
medical costs are a heavy burden on them. Ultimately, they die young
with increasing difficulty in breathing, leaving orphans and widows in
the world.) They have been to the office of letters and visits, to the
municipal government, to the social security bureau, to prove the labor
relations of pneumoconiosis workers and some people to the court filed a
case. They have been to departments big and small that they think can
help them solve problems. They have even been to Shenzhen Public
Security Bureau many times. Over the past year, these pneumoconiosis
workers have repeatedly traveled between Hunan and Shenzhen to safeguard
their rights.
Wang Zhaogang
The Shenzhen Municipal Government has given them hope again and
again, and then destroyed their hope. It has even used force against
pneumoconiosis workers who have difficulty breathing and are already
struggling on the edge of death, even pepper water as a stimulating
dispersal weapon. At first, the Hunan local government did not oppose
the workers to go to Shenzhen to defend their rights. But now, there are
all kinds of obstruction and pressure on defenders, which shows that at
this stage, the Shenzhen and Hunan governments have reached some kind
of agreement; and just a few days after Wang Zhaogang’s death, the
amount of compensation originally promised to him has been much less!
Due to the dereliction of duty and lack of proper protective
equipment, many workers inhaled a lot of dust and eventually suffered
from pneumoconiosis. In recent years, workers have been diagnosed with
pneumoconiosis. Due to the closure of legal channels and the gradual
deterioration of the disease, workers can only go to the road of
safeguarding their rights. Self-media platforms such as the Cenozoic
(micro-workers’remittance) have greatly helped and supported workers
habitually neglected by the mainstream media. The editors of the
Cenozoic (micro-workers’ remittance): Yang Zhengjun, Ke Chengbing and
Wei Zhili have successively participated in the work of protecting the
rights of pneumoconiosis workers, helped them sort out their demands,
explained their legal knowledge to them, and voiced their voices. Help
them fight for their rights and interests. They consistently adhere to
their own position, insist on helping ordinary vulnerable working
people, and practice their own beliefs in Marxism. However, in China,
which claims to be guided by Marxism, they should be the most respected
people, but they have become the “counter-party and counter-revolution”
in the mouth of Shenzhen police. The new generation, as a platform for
long-term concern about the survival situation and rights of the
majority of migrant workers, after hearing the news, devoted themselves
to the protection of workers’rights with great enthusiasm. They
popularized legal knowledge for workers, exposed the illegal suppression
of the protection of the rights of pneumoconiosis workers by the
relevant departments in Shenzhen, and called on the social just people
to help workers raise donations.
These substantive and legitimate help to workers has infringed on the
interests of the Shenzhen government. The Shenzhen Municipal Government
has never thought of solving the problem from the very beginning –
deception, intimidation, threat, surveillance, tracking, blackmail,
spraying hot pepper water, violent clearance, which is the way they
treat pneumoconiosis workers. In the past safeguards of workers’rights,
the Cenozoic exposed the illegal repression of Shenzhen government,
which made some officials in Shenzhen hate the Cenozoic deeply. As early
as last year, Yang Zhengjun, the editor-in-chief of the new generation,
was threatened and intimidated by Shenzhen police at the scene of
workers’rights protection. In early January this year, he was arrested
illegally, and so far there has been no news. Less than three months
after Yang Zhengjun’s arrest, the evil hands of Shenzhen’s black forces
once again extended to the other two editors of the Cenozoic era, hoping
to further suppress the rights-defending movement of Hunan’s
pneumoconiosis workers.
At about 1 a.m. on March 20, Wei Zhili, a new generation editor, was
arrested by police who had long been ambushed on his way home. The
police then went into the room to search for things and take pictures.
At about 2 a.m., the police took Wei Zhili away on the grounds of
disturbing public order. At the same time, another editor of the new
generation, Ke Chengbing, has been lost for more than 40 hours, and it
can be basically confirmed that he has also been persecuted.
From the Christian Incident in 2018 to the arrest of Wu Guijun and
other people in January 2019, to the arrest of the editors of the new
generation, all kinds of signs show that the government has strengthened
its pressure on the platform of voice for workers.
Our Comrade Wei Zhili has a very good temper. We have never seen him
get angry. The only time he got angry is when he mentioned that at the
beginning of November last year, Hunan pneumoconiosis worker was sprayed
pepper water at the entrance of Shenzhen Municipal Government. Ke
Chengbing has also been paying attention to this matter, trying to voice
for workers through the platform of the new generation. For them, the
lives of those dying are extremely important, and what pneumoconiosis
workers want is just the most basic justice.
Comrade Wei Zhili
In 2009, hundreds of Hunan migrant workers suffered from
pneumoconiosis in Shenzhen due to the collective pneumoconiosis of
pneumatic drillers, and their rights in Shenzhen were blocked. After the
news coverage, many young students from Peking University, Tsinghua
University and other universities organized research teams, sent
condolences to rights-defending workers, and carried out activities in
universities around the country to support workers. In the era of
advocating “safeguarding rights according to law”, these acts are a
manifestation of a sense of social responsibility. Wei Zhili’s roommates
were also influenced by him to help carry out rights activities. Later,
Wei Zhili took the initiative to go to Foxconn factory to investigate
the living conditions of workers. By participating in the investigation
of the living conditions of the working class, the young man had the
idea of serving the workers in the future. In 2010, after graduation,
Wei Zhili became a staff member of the workers’rights protection
organization in Shenzhen, and struggled for the rights of the working
class until today.
Firmly safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of pneumoconiosis workers! Release Comrade Wei Zhili immediately!
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