Ni Yulan sits on her bed tapping away at her laptop as her husband Dong Jiqin skitters about the dingy hotel room lighting candles before the last rays of the sun fade on a recent grey, cold day in Beijing. It is the 37th day since Beijing police cut off the electricity to the couple's room, and the 16th day without water. The disconnections are an attempt to drive the couple from the dilapidated hotel that police once confined them to.
As a visitor enters the room, Ni sits up in bed and manoeuvres sidewise. The crutches leaning against the wall beside her are a reminder that this brave woman was permanently crippled by Beijing police in 2002 for taking up the cases of some of the nation's most deprived citizens.
The floor is piled with goods donated by grateful people that Ni, a prominent human rights lawyer, has helped for free. Every day, petitioners show up at her hotel, many seeking legal advice from the woman they have heard about through word of mouth.
'A few petitioners and internet users came by recently and brought plenty of water, candles, fruit, clothes, shoes, blankets and electric lamps,' Ni says. 'They said they were going home for Lunar New Year and were worried we didn't have enough things.'
Ni says she relies on the kindness of strangers and friends to make it through each day.
Her computer battery lasts less than three hours, and without electricity, she can't recharge it. However, the husband of an imprisoned Falun Gong practitioner has given her an electric charger that provides an additional five or six hours of computer power a day.
When both units run out of power, someone must take the devices out for recharging. Her daughter has given her a wireless card, which enables her to get online. Her husband, brother and daughter carry buckets of water to the hotel so the wheelchair-bound Ni can bathe.