My Arrest

Abstract

November weather is very strange; in the afternoon it was a lovely fall day without a trace of chilliness in the air; toward evening, the temperature dropped abruptly. It seemed that a new cold front was about to hit us. We hurried through the chilly wind to the reception room for visiting masses in the Public Security Bureau of Beijing Municipality; we were so cold that our teeth were chattering. I explained to the officer in charge that day the situation and made my request. He replied with a haughty and aloof air that he would telephone the higher authorities in a while. It seemed that his higher-ups were more concerned about us than he; before he could telephone, a call came through to ask about us - obviously the station on Chang'an Street had reported us and our whereabouts to the higher authorities. Then the officer in charge began to pay more attention to us; he came out of his office to the waiting room to chat with us, When we discussed whether the arrest of people and confiscation of the booklets by the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau were legal, he gave us his high opinion: As long as it was the public security departments which confiscated things and arrested people, they were done according to law, Obviously, in the mind of this administrator of justice, law is produced by the likes of him. I threatened him teasingly by asking Yang Jing to write down what he had said, and I told him that I would use his words on the proper occasion, He seemed a little uneasy, But, like the proverbial Chinese common people, full of human feelings and common sense, he said philosophically, "Writing a few essays! Making a few speeches! What's the use of that? At most, you get them published in foreign countries. You can't harm the Public Security Bureau a tiny bit, On the other hand, if you make trouble, that's fifteen years. You should think carefully about fifteen year 5."