Workers' voice of Shenzhen takes a beating in crackdown

Shenzhen NGO worker Su Yuan has been forced to fight for her rights after about 60 men evicted her and five colleagues from their office in August. Their ordeal was part of a seven-month Guangdong crackdown that shuttered at least eight non-governmental labour organisations in Shenzhen. Su talks about how they and their group, called the Little Grass Workers' Home, were mistreated.

I joined the Little Grass Workers' Home in 2007 after graduating from China Women's University in Beijing with a degree in social work. The NGO was founded by a factory worker in 2003 to advocate labour rights after he was diagnosed with poisoning by benzene [a carcinogen]. There are not many chances for children who grow up in small villages to receive an education, and half of my classmates from a rural junior high school in Hunan dropped out to work on assembly lines in the Pearl River Delta as child labour. We educate workers so that they understand their rights, provide free counselling in labour disputes, and visit four hospitals in the outlying Baoan district every week to help workers injured in industrial accidents.

We had been facing huge pressure from the authorities and landlords since June, although then Guangdong party boss Wang Yang had pledged to make the province the first on the mainland to ease registration requirements for NGOs starting from July. On August 30, more than 60 strong men in security guard uniforms rushed into our office, evicted everyone, threw away our property and welded the door shut. We called the police, but they came late and refused to investigate the attack.

A few days later, we were fined 10,000 yuan (HK$12,300) and ordered to close by the Baoan police bureau's firefighting department, because they said our office did not meet fire safety regulations. Tax officers called on us to check if we had paid enough taxes, even though we are supported by Oxfam Hong Kong and do not generate any income. Two colleagues and I were also forced by landlords to move out of our rented flats after they came under a lot of pressure from the authorities. Several volunteers said police had warned them not to work with us. We decided to sue the firefighting department over the unreasonable fine and the Baoan police bureau for its failure to act. We finally found a new office in October, but were forced to move out again after just two weeks. To protect ourselves, we have decided not to disclose our new address to the media.