Black jail sentence fake: court (2)

"In order to maintain stability, local governments will try all means to intercept and reduce the number of petitioners, who are living evidence of governments' administrative problems," Yu Jianrong, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Sunday.

Yu said that it was more important to punish the officials who give the orders. "But most of the time, officials hire security guards to 'control petitioners' for them and then wash their hands of the matter."

"Once officials find detention is a difficult thing to do, they could use money to pay off petitioners. But either way, the real problems behind the complaints would not be solved, even if some petitioners may be silenced," Han Yusheng, a law professor with the Renmin University of China, told the Global Times, during a telephone interview.

Zhao Meifu, a petitioner from Gansu Province, told the Global Times that she has been detained four times for 40 days each time by Gansu's liaison office in Beijing.

"They put me and other petitioners at the basement of the office," said Zhao, adding that officers would wait for her at places where petitioners gather.