Petition - Zhao Liang

Petition by Zhao Liang





A harrowing investigation by Chinese documentary maker and artist Zhao Liang, Petition: The Court of the Complainants looks at the world of “petitioners,” people who come to Beijing from all parts of China in order to plead their case against injustices, and who find themselves embroiled in a no-exit situation which leaves them homeless, impoverished, even disabled. Gathered near the complaints offices, around the southern railway station of Beijing, living in the makeshift shelters in now-demolished “Petition Village,” the complainants wait for months or years to obtain justice. Faced with brutal intimidation from the local authorities, the complainants who stubbornly continue despite the abuses find that their hopes are often in vain. Beginning in 1996, Zhao Liang accompanied several complainants through their process, including a mother and daughter whose full story unfolds over ten years. Petitioners continued filming right up to the start of the Olympic Games, showing that the persistent contradictions of China continue in the midst of powerful economic expansion.

(Zhao Liang, China/France, 124 min, DVD, 2009)

Zhao Liang (b. 1971) is one of the prominent figures in contemporary independent documentary filmmaking in China, showing his works at the Cannes Film Festival and the Berlin Biennial, among others. He has also made experimental films and won several prizes for works such as Paper Air Plane (Zhi Feiji, 1997) and Return to the Border (Zai Jiang Bian, 2004). He won the Montgolfiere d’or Award at the Festival des Trois Continents in Nantes in France for his documentary Crime and Punishment (2007), a film detailing daily life in a police station located in the border area between China and Northern Korea. Petition (Shangfang, 1996-2008) was an official selection at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival. He studied at Luxun Academy of Fine Arts and Beijing Film Academy.

Film Studies Center - The University of Chicago

Film Studies Center - The University of Chicago

Nako - Kinnaur - India

Nako - Labche La (3662m)

Nako - Reo Purgyal

Malling - Nako

Nako (3565m) - Horizon

Nako (3565m) - Horizon

Nako (3565m) - Mani stones

Nako (3565m) - Shelter

Nako (3565m) - Neighbouring village

Malling - Nako - Bus halt

Malling - Nako - Bus halt

Kalpa - Kinnaur - India

Kalpa (2800m) - School

Kalpa - Jorkanden (6473m)

Kalpa (2800m) - Horizon

Kalpa (2800m) - Horizon

Kalpa (2800m) - Prayer flags

Kalpa (2800m) - Orchards

Kalpa (2800m)

Thich Nhat Hanh

Monk’s Followers Flee
2010-01-07

Followers of an activist Vietnamese monk are forced underground.


AFP
Thich Nhat Hanh (R) at a pagoda in Ho Chi Minh City, March 16, 2007.

BANGKOK—Followers of a hugely influential Zen Buddhist monk say they have been forced to go underground after being evicted from the pagoda where they had been living.

Some 200 monks and nuns—devotees of Thich Nhat Hanh—fled Dec. 31 from the Phuoc Hue pagoda in central Vietnam after visits by what U.S.-based Human Rights Watch described as “orchestrated” mobs that included police.

“We are now scattered everywhere, and it’s hard to settle down,” one nun said in an interview. “The authorities won’t let us stay wherever we go. They are trying to split us up.”

“So we travel in small groups. Some people who have families in the same area go together—and we can stay in one place for only a short time,” she said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“If we stay more than a week, the local authorities come and ask for our papers. So we have to move all the time.”

“At first, we wanted to go together and stay in one place—we wanted legal papers that allow us stay together, all 400 people, in our country,” the nun said.

Some 400 disciples of Thich Nhat Hanh, who has helped to popularize Buddhism in the West, were evicted from the Bat Nha monastery in Lam Dong province in September.

Nearly 200 then took refuge at the nearby Phuoc Hue pagoda, but they were ordered to leave by Dec. 31 and have asked for asylum in France.

Vietnam’s communist government, which closely monitors religious affairs, had been trying to remove the monks and nuns from the monastery for several months.

Harassment reported

This was the second time since September the group was forced to flee after a stepped-up government effort to disband the community of young monks and nuns.

They first fled from Bat Nha monastery after “thugs and undercover police” armed with hammers descended upon it, Human Rights Watch said.

Both the U.S. embassy and the European Parliament have voiced concern.

Thich Nhat Hanh, a Zen monk and peace activist, is based at the Plum Village monastery in France and teaches “socially engaged” Buddhism.

He traveled to the United States in 1966 to call for an end to the Vietnam War and was barred from returning by both the U.S.-backed Saigon regime and the communist government that has ruled reunified Vietnam since 1975.

He visited the country in 2005 and 2007.

Ven. Thich Toan Duc, vice president of the state-run Vietnamese Buddhist Association of Lam Dong province, said he didn’t know where the group might have gone.

“Right now, there are no followers of Plum Village in Lam Dong. I don’t know where they are now,” Duc said.

Local police declined to comment and said they knew nothing about the fleeing nuns and monks.

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