「你不给我一个说法，我就给你一个说法。」
Yang Jia was born in Beijing in 1980. In October 2007, while visiting Shanghai, he was stopped by Zhabei police for riding a rented bicycle, held at the Zhijiang West Road police station for six hours and beaten by several officers. For nine months he filed complaint after complaint demanding an apology from the Zhabei police; no authority would listen. On July 1, 2008, he walked alone into the Zhabei Public Security Bureau in Shanghai, killed six police officers, wounded four officers and a security guard, and was arrested on the spot. This is the Yang Jia Act of Heavenly Justice at the Zhabei Public Security Sub-bureau in Shanghai. The lawyer who defended him at his first trial, Xie Youming, was a legal adviser to the Zhabei district government, and his mother, Wang Jingmei, was locked in a psychiatric hospital by Beijing police for the four months her son was prosecuted. Yang Jia was executed by the tyrannical CCP regime on November 26, 2008, at the age of 28. His words, “If you won't give me an answer, I'll give you one,” still speak for countless Chinese living under oppression, and people still call him Yang the Hero.
On November 26, 2018, people from different parts of the country made a special trip to Futian Cemetery in Beijing to pay tribute to Beijing youth Yang Jia, who was executed ten years earlier. A Radio Free Asia report reviewed the origins of the incident: in 2007, he was stopped while riding a rented bicycle in Shanghai, subjected to six hours of interrogation and violent abuse.
During the 2013 Qingming Festival, the public faced little obstruction in mourning Zhao Ziyang, but six artists and more than thirty petitioners who went to Yang Jia's grave in Beijing were taken away by the police station. Netizens called Yang Jia a knight-errant and a swordsman.
On April 4, 2012, Qingming, more than ten petitioners went to Yang Jia's grave in Beijing to pay their respects. The area around the grave was swarming with police, and surveillance cameras had been installed. Five petitioners, including Mao Hengfeng, were taken away by police as soon as they arrived at the grave.
The film When Night Falls, directed by Shanghai-based director Ying Liang, tells from the perspective of Yang Jia's mother, Wang Jingmei, her experience of being illegally confined in a psychiatric hospital after her son's arrest and her subsequent efforts on his behalf. The film was screened at the Jeonju International Film Festival and the Locarno Film Festival in 2012, where Ying Liang won the Best Director award at Locarno, after which he left Shanghai following threats of arrest.
Around the third anniversary of Yang Jia's execution on November 26, 2011, Chinese netizens launched memorial activities online, and many reposted his line, "If you don't give me an explanation, I'll give you one." NTD's report noted that the netizens' commemoration was mainly an expression of dissatisfaction with autocratic privilege through Yang Jia.
On December 18, 2010, Ai Weiwei was interviewed by the documentary program of Sunny TV, talking about Yang Jia as he knew him: he liked blogging, mountain climbing, and spending time with people he liked — not a reclusive person, but a person who made choices. He said Yang Jia went this far to defend the dignity of life; when most people swallow down filthy things, Yang Jia said, I won't swallow this.
Around December 2010, the second trial of the He Shengkai case in Guizhou opened, which the outside world called the "Guizhou Yang Jia case." He Shengkai once wrote in his diary, "Yang Jia's fine deed is Xuanyuan's lamentable affair." Netizens and lawyers placed his case alongside the Yang Jia case, worried that his judicial rights and interests would not be safeguarded.
November 26, 2010 marked the second anniversary of Yang Jia’s execution. His mother, Wang Jingmei, traveled to Beijing’s Futian Cemetery to pay her respects, and the authorities deployed police to monitor her. Radio Free Asia reported that Yang Jia is regarded by many as a victim of China’s judicial system.
On April 5, 2010, Qingming Festival, Wang Jingmei went to Beijing Futian Cemetery to pay respects to her son. Large numbers of police and plainclothes officers surrounded the cemetery, several people filmed the mourners with video cameras, and more than a dozen police cars were parked nearby. The police told Wang Jingmei that Yang Jia's grave would receive "special attention."
On the morning of November 26, 2008, Yang Jia was executed by lethal injection in Shanghai at the age of 28. This was only five days after the Supreme People's Court issued its approval ruling, and less than a day after his mother received the ruling.
Three days before Yang Jia was executed, Wang Jingmei, who had been held for four months, was brought by police from a psychiatric hospital in Beijing to a detention center in Shanghai to visit her son. It was the first time mother and son had met since the incident, and also the last.
On November 21, 2008, the Supreme People's Court issued a criminal ruling approving the death sentence of Yang Jia. It was only after 7 p.m. on November 25 that Wang Jingmei received this ruling, with only one night left before the execution.
On November 9, 2008, Yang Jia's aunt, Wang Jingrong, went to a psychiatric hospital under the arrangement of Beijing police to see her younger sister Wang Jingmei, who was being held there. This was the first time the family had seen Wang Jingmei since she disappeared four months earlier. She had been confined at the Compulsory Treatment Management Division of the Beijing Public Security Bureau, known externally as Ankang Hospital.
On October 20, 2008, the Shanghai High People's Court issued Criminal Ruling (2008) Hu Gao Xing Zhong Zi No. 131, rejecting Yang Jia's appeal, upholding the first-instance death sentence, and reporting it to the Supreme People's Court for review and approval. When the ruling was issued, Yang Jia's mother, Wang Jingmei, was still confined in a psychiatric hospital.
On the day of Yang Jia's second-instance trial, a large crowd gathered outside the Shanghai High People's Court, with some shouting "Long live Yang Jia." About a dozen protesters wearing T-shirts printed with Yang Jia's portrait and the words "If you don't give me an explanation, I'll give you one" were taken away on the spot in front of the police. This was a rare street action in China in support of a defendant.
To remember is to refuse to give in.