After physical and mental trauma, how else can one victimize the defenseless?
Go after the family.
That’s what appears to have happened to the woman who was forced by local Family Planning officials to abort at seven months. By now surely you’ve seen the photo, and know that authorities have done diddly shit to punish the perpetrators except (we’re told) strip them of their jobs (and I’m sure they remain unemployed, ignominiously blacklisted and shamed [SARCASM]). The latest development, according to Yanzhao City Online, is that the family of Feng Jianmei, the 27-year-old in Zengjia Town, Shaanxi whose seven-month-old fetus was removed from her belly and laid on her bedside, is being branded “traitors” for accepting an interview with foreign media. As the story appears on NetEase (translated by chinaSMACK):
…the family of the woman who suffered that forced abortion had repeatedly openly put their trust in the Party and the government, even refusing foreign media interviews as a result. But when they finally had no choice but to accept an interview from a German journalist, the villagers raised banners cursing them as traitors to the country and the father of the woman who suffered the forced abortion was forced to flee. The wolf wants to eat the sheep, and yet the sheep does everything it can to protect the wolf, while the other sheep accuse this sheep of damaging this wolf’s reputation. Just when will the absurdity of this sheep end?
Check out the chinaSMACK post if you want more details: about how the local government has organized a “water army” (paid online commenters) to smear the family’s reputation; about how it is trying to spread rumors of the existence of documents the family signed agreeing to the abortion; about how Feng Jianmei’s sister is planning to do Japanese porno; and, perhaps worst of all to one’s reputation in such a godforsaken village/township, how the family has been giving interviews to Japanese media. And according to the journalist, the local government wants its water army to spread the idea that “no one in Zhenping county’s history has ever enjoyed better post-birth care than Feng Jianmei.”
There’s enough bullshit here to fertilize the Pearl River Delta, but don’t expect anyone in Zhenping to see it. Banners were erected in front of the Feng apartment, reading, “Punish national traitors, drive them out of Zhenjia Town.” Who would want to stay, after this, and live among the foulest detritus society has to offer?
The comments on NetEase are around these lines. Again, translated on chinaSMACK:
Talk about a society that has reversed black and white and is overflowing with sewage! How do we put up with this kind of absurdity?
According to them, the people who induced labor and committed murder would be patriots then, right? I really don’t want to hurl abuse… [but] fuck you, you motherfucking “patriots”.
Whose hands is this country in?
Who are the [real] traitors of the country, the ordinary common people all know…
Have we returned to the Cultural Revolution again? With their money-making scheme ruined, we can imagine just what group of people are angry now~
To use something netizens say online: “Our countrymen have the same nature as pigs, and the same fate. Only when we’re about to be slaughtered do we tragically squeal and snort, but it changes nothing.”
As with all Chinese online discussions, members of the 50-Cent (Wumao) Army — again, commenters who get paid according to how many nice things they say about the government — lurk, so that in this case, not everyone agrees that the people who did this are husks of human beings who deserve drubbing by shillelagh. The least angry comment?
Who can prove that this was done by the local government? Who can prove that it wasn’t done by the local people on their own?
A fair question, but I’m afraid it doesn’t matter for our purposes. Here, let me activate rant mode: Zhenjia Town of Zhenpin County in Ankang City, Shaanxi province is the worst place in the world, a special type of hell that criminals in the old days would choose death over banishment in order to avoid. It doesn’t matter if the “local people” or the local government did this. Vile creatures survive — and thrive, it seems — in that place, lost like a drifting pirate ship, isolated from decency and common sense. If you think I’m being too harsh, well, yes. A woman had her seven-month-old fetus extracted from her belly and laid at her bedside, and the people responsible — who have been identified, by the way — have suffered no justice of consequence. You think about that, and wonder how high the blame should trickle, and how far it has yet to go.
UPDATE, 10:38 am: Tea Leaf Nation and Ministry of Tofu have both written about this now. I recommend TLN’s post in full; from Ministry of Tofu, this netizen comment stood out: “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.” Throw that line around at your next party.
UPDATE, 6/28, 4:31 am: According to Xinhua from yesterday:
The government said its has decided to subject Yu Yanmei, deputy county magistrate of Zhenping in charging of family planning, with administrative demerits according to national and provincial policies and regulation.
Jiang Nenghai, head of the family planning bureau of Zhenping, has been removed from his post. Some other officials of the township, county government and the county hospital that aborted Feng’s pregnancy, were also punished.
How will Yu Yanmei ever survive those administrative demerits? Those “also punishments” were not revealed.
That is so tragic. That poor family. I hope everyone sees just how these victims are being treated by their own neighbors.
7 months and people still want to use the word Fetus. Can they not see the hypocrisy?