Hebei city authorities try to limit petitions in Beijing

Petitioners from Shijiazhuang, Hebei province, who protest at Tiananmen Square, the leadership compound of Zhongnanhai, or other politically sensitive areas of Beijing including foreign embassy districts will be punished, local authorities have announced.

The new guideline released after the Communist Party pledged to reform its notorious petitioning system in the recently concluded third plenum.

It said China would set up an online petitioning system and "strive to settle people's cases in a timely manner and at the local level", as well as announcing it would scrap the re-education-through-labour camps where petitioners were often detained.

Shijiazhuang's government stated on its official website last week that to petition at "unauthorised areas" in the capital would result in "administrative" penalities, which means petitioners could be detained for a maximum of 20 days if police do not press further charges.

To express grievances near authorised petition offices is also not safe. An earlier instruction from the Ministry of Public Security in July lists dozens of strictly banned actions such as placing wreaths, images of deceased people or even bodies near a handful of approved petition offices in Beijing.

It also said petitioners could be criminally liable if their behaviour "constituted crimes".

"I'm not sure if this regulation will become a boilerplate for other cities, but obviously it is illegal," said Si Weijiang , a prominent rights lawyer who has called for the petitioning system to be abolished.