After 450 days of applying for marriage outside the Red Wall, not even a single "disagreement" can be obtained: the Chongqing case shows how the Chinese prison silently punished disagreers

How long can a marriage application be delayed? Li Xiaobo and Zhang Yong, who are serving a prison sentence in Shandong Ruan, have given the answer for 450 days. More absurdly, after a round and a round of rush between the prison, Shandong Province Prison Administration, Shandong Province Government and civil affairs department, they are still faced with neither approval nor formal rejection, but a more difficult state of legal procedure: no outcome, no clear responsibility authority, and even a written "not handled" that can take the complaint.

On September 6, Li submitted a letter to the Ruan prison again, asking for a written rejection notice on the marriage application, while requesting to disclose the names, positions, alarm numbers and on-site law enforcement records of employees who had previously received the application.

The most skilled means of the CCP executive power is sometimes not to say “no” but never to say the answer.

According to the public application of Li, Li submitted a marriage application to the Ruan Prison on June 27,

1. Li submitted a marriage application and voluntary marriage declaration to the prison. Since then, she has been continuously questioned about the progress, but has been pushed back and forth between different agencies.

In March, the Runan prison said the application had been filed and they could not act; in May, the Shandong Provincial Prison Administration again asked her to look for the prison and civil affairs department; in July, the Shandong Provincial Government rejected the administrative review; in August, the civil affairs department said the marriage registration required both sides to attend, to coordinate with the prison on their own; and after returning to the Runan prison, she was told that she would never meet the conditions for the detective parent.

* Approval leaves an administrative decision; rejection leaves an object of appeal and litigation. Only indefinite delay can allow a person's rights to be consumed without a formal decision.

Marriage is not a gift of prison, but a civil right that is not deprived of a sentence.

In the previous administrative review materials, Li Xiaobo pointed out that the prison law stipulates that the rights of criminals who have not been deprived or restricted by law are not infringed.

The question is, therefore, very specific: can a prisoner not go to the marriage registration authority on his own, and the marriage registration requires his presence, should the prison provide the necessary assistance?

Ironically, the publication of the Shandong prison system by Li Huang Xu showed that other prisons in Shandong and even the Runan prison itself had advertised to assist prisoners in marriage registration.

When ordinary servants can handle, political prisoners are delayed in the process labyrinth, so-called lawful management becomes a selective right.

From the prison to the prison administration, to the civil affairs department: every agency is present, but no one is responsible.

The most documented of these 450 days is not one rejection, but how responsibility is gradually diluted.

The public material presented by Lee Lechu presents a chain of administrative push-ups:

• Runan Prison said it had to its superiors;
• Shandong Province Prison Administration said it did not fall within its own scope of business;
• Shandong Province Government brought the dispute into the scope of punishment enforcement and rejected the review;
• Civil Affairs Department stressed the need for registration to be present;
• The final applicant was again pushed back to prison.

In this structure, each authority can say that it is responsible for only a small portion of it, while the subject of rights faces the entire state machine.

The 450-day timeline: How a private right is broken down into countless “After”

From the submission of marriage applications in June 2025, until September 2026 the prison will again be asked to give at least a written rejection, the time itself has become one of the most important evidence of the event. The applicant is not without the procedure, but continuously through the procedure: inquiry, mail, application disclosure, administrative review, application supervision, request meeting, and then back to the prison that was originally responsible for the execution.

This time line can be summarized as:

1. June 27, 2025 : Li Zhi Yong submitted a marriage application to the Ruan Prison;
2. subsequently: Li Li submitted a marriage application and voluntary marriage declaration;
3. March 2026,: the prison said the application had been to a senior level;
4. May: the Shandong Provincial Prison Administration requested to continue communicating with the prison and civil affairs department;
5. July: the Shandong Provincial Government rejected the relevant administrative review;
6. August: the civil affairs department stressed the presence of both sides and the issue was again pushed back to prison;
7. September 6,: Li Zhi requested the Ruan Prison to formally reject and apply to the Provincial Prison Administration.

This is not “no procedures”, it is precisely too many procedures, but there is always no organ willing to be responsible for the outcome.

The punishment for the opposing may extend beyond the judgment

He was sentenced to 14 years in prison for "crimes of subversion of the state regime". The deprivation of liberty he suffered has been clarified by a court ruling. But the control that an authoritarian prison system can impose is never limited only to cellars and sentences.

Communications, meetings, medical care, family relationships, and marriage can all be a leverage for managers. For political prisoners, these rights to clear rules are easily translated into additional punishment.

Li Xiaobo had previously applied for a special meeting with Zhong Zhong, and had also experienced no response for a long time. She subsequently applied to the prosecutor's office for supervision, requesting to determine whether the prison had registered, accepted and approved the relevant applications.

This makes the marriage application no longer just a private story of two people, but a window to observe the power of the CCP prison: An agency doesn’t even have to publicly declare depriving you of your rights, it just requires you to never complete the process needed to realize the rights.

450 days later, they now only ask the national machine to give a clear answer.

The new letter submitted by Mr. Li in September has been reduced to the most basic level: if not approved, please formally reject it, and leave written documents that allow you to enter the next legal procedure.

A government that claims to rule the country in accordance with the law, letting citizens run for 450 days in order to get a “disagreement” paper, is itself the sharpest irony of the so-called rule of law.

What the Communist prison system really needs to answer is not that Mr. Zhong “does not deserve to be married,” but rather: “A civil right that has not been deprived of by the court, why can it be frozen by the administrative organs through silence indefinitely?”

When the law writes the right still exists, and the power makes every path to the realization of the right impossible, the right on paper remains only decorated. The 450 days of Zhang Yong and Lee, recorded is precisely the most typical way this authoritarian rule of law works – the law does not publicly abolish your right, but the person who has the procedure can make it never fulfilled.