Shanghai human rights activist Feng Zhenhu has been living and waiting in the hall of Japan's Narita airport since November 4 when he was barred from entering his own country by the Shanghai immigration the eighth times.
Feng is an economist and a human rights activist. After the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989, he openly criticized the repression and was under the CCP internal investigation for more than a year. In 1991, he went to Japan to study and in 1998 he returned back to China to do business but was detained by the Shanghai police and sentenced to 3 year imprisonment for illegal publication of an E-book on Shanghai Japanese investment in 2000.
Up till now, the Chinese government has not officially explained why they did not allow Feng's entrance to the country.
Feng refused to enter Japan and told FT's reporter that “For a Chinese to be kidnapped and taken to Japan like this is a humiliation for me and a humiliation for China.” He also refused UN's refugee office's suggestion in “applying political refugee status”. He just wants to go home.
Now my Japan visa (expired by 2010 June 12) has become an obstacle for me to return back to my country and it is an excuse for Shanghai authority to forbid my entrance. The Shanghai authority threatened corporate with economic interest and demanded the airline to participate in this illegal abduction.
In Nov 11 2009, I had returned back to my country by taking NH0921. Although I had not entered the immigration, I had checked in the Hotel in Shanghai Putung airport. On the second day (Nov 3) at around 9:45, around a dozen Shanghai police physically forced me to the boarding place of NH0922 and tried to “remove” a citizen to a foreign country. I strongly protest against their violent abduction. I resisted at the entrance of the flight and fought against the kidnappers for two hours. At the end ANA's Shanghai manager, under the threat of the kidnappers, was forced to help the kidnap. 4 young undercover police dragged me to a seat near the end of the plane, a ANA Shanghai staff also help them to push me on the seat. I was so exhausted that I would not resist their criminal act anymore. Other passengers had witnessed the scene and the flight was deferred for more than an hour. This is my first time being forcibly deported to Japan and dumped in Narita Airport away from Tokyo.
I was kidnapped to Japan airport in Nov 4. Today is Nov 7, I had not entered Japan. For 4 days and 3 nights, I lived in the immigration check in hall. At night I lied on the blench. I suffered from hunger. There are shops and auto selling machine in the exist hall, but there isn't anything in the immigration check in side. In the past 3 days, I only had three roll of rice. I asked the immigration management official to apply humanistic principle and let their staffs to help me to buy some rice rolls. He refused. They even refused to deliver food that my sister bought me. It is obvious that they tried to torture me by means of hunger in order to force me to enter Japan. However, I would insist to carry on. Japanese bureaucrats are inhumane, indifferent and cruel. The so-called friendly country is just an ideal imagination of Japanese Prime Minister. If same thing happened in China, Chinese people would never treat foreigners like this. Chinese people are very cruel towards their own people in internal struggle, but very friendly to foreign guest…
November 14 – Welcome Obama's Visit to Japan and China
美国总统奥巴马昨天访问日本。我又自制了一件英文广告衫,前面的请愿文字:“Chinese citizen has been refused to return to China for eight times.”,背后的文字:“Chinese Human Right 中国人権,回国 帰国 Return to China”…
Yesterday, the U.S President Obama visited Japan, I made an English protest T-shirt. On the front side, it stated: Chinese citizen has been refused to return to China for eight times”, at the back it stated: Chinese Human Right, Return to China…
Obama will visit China on 15 November 2009 and his first stop is Shanghai. If Obama knows that a Chinese citizen has been refused entrance to his own country for eight times, then when he has the chance to meet Chinese government or Shanghai authorities, he would ask: Why you welcome a foreigner so whole-heartedly but refuse your own citizen to return? A city as big as Shanghai, how comes it cannot allow a citizen to stay?” Foreigner will not be able to understand why a citizen cannot return back to his own country. Even ordinary Chinese people could not believe that a strong China cannot accept her own citizen.
Some people say that I am battling for citizen's right to return back to China by myself, but I know that many Chinese people are behind me. When I was hungry and desperate, many Chinese from mainland China, Hong Kong and overseas delivered food to me. When I was cut from internet connection, some Internet experts from mainland China gave me technical support and help me to build a twitter account. Now I can use my mobile phone to update my status and let people from mainland China to know what's going on here.
My reply: “First of all I want to express my gratitude towards the United Nation refugee organization. But I will not consider to apply for refugee status because I have my own country. China is my mother country. I am a Chinese and a Chinese intellectual. I should be responsible for China. Now I need to return to my country and this is the basic human right. The Chinese authority's act in barring off citizens from returning back to their own country not only violates the United Nation's constitution, the International Human Right Convention, it also violates Chinese Constitution. The Chinese government has not made any official statement about my exile yet. I know we have a lot of sufferings in China, but I still want to stay there. The lesser Chinese refugee China has, the better China will become.”