A nationwide ranking system that counts the number of petitioners in every region is to be abolished, Beijing News reported yesterday.

Under the current policy, regions are graded according to the number of petitions received — the more the petitions, the poorer the grades given to regional departments in the annual assessment. This has led to many authorities adopting foul means to stifle petitioners.

Illegal detention is believed to be a common ploy, with petitioners frequently intercepted by local government agents and detained in shabby hostels known as "black jails." They are often ill-treated.

In April 2012, 11 petitioners from central Henan Province traveled to Beijing hoping to air their grievances. But six were confined and four were forcibly sent back to their hometown. In February, 10 people who illegally detained the petitioners were jailed.

Also, some petitioners have been taken to court or sent to labor camps under the excuse of disturbing social order.

In August 2012, Tang Hui, a native of central Hunan Province, was sent to labor camp in Yongzhou City to serve an 18-month sentence after petitioning for justice for her daughter, who was repeatedly raped and forced into prostitution at the age of 11.

Tang protested in front of local government buildings and called for the death penalty for all convicts. She also complained that the local police department had falsified evidence to reduce the sentences of people involved.

Overwhelmed by the media pressure, the decision was revoked eight days later and Tang was released.

According to Southern Metropolis Daily, villages and counties in Yongzhou were warned that their scores would be deducted in assessment if local complaints spread to departments in Yongzhou or even Beijing.

It was reported that the village government spent millions of yuan in fighting Tang, Beijing News revealed.

Petitioning, or xinfang in Chinese, literally meaning letters, calls and visits, was introduced in the 1950s as an administrative system designed to hear complaints and grievances from the public.

It is a traditional way for people to seek justice from higher authorities when they have information or a complaint about the performance of administrative organizations, enterprises or institutions that supply public services.

China's top authority for handling complaints and advice from the public adopted the Regulations on Letters and Visits in January 2005 and it went into effect that May.

The State Bureau for Letters and Calls had planned to just openly criticize violations and dereliction among officials in dealing with public complaints. But it soon evolved into a public ranking system which was used to measure officials' performance.

Reacting to the reform decision, Duan Feng, deputy director of the petitioning office in a western province, said he won't need to worry about the "petitioning figures" any longer. They could now simply focus on how to handle rather than stem the complaints.

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