"It's worse than being in prison!" This is one way that 49-year-old Li Long described the year he spent in a labor reeducation center in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province.

Li finds it difficult to talk about this period of his life, during which he worked 15 hours a day on a shoe assembly line with a 30-minute break for eating, smoking and so-called rest. He is, however, eager to explain that the accusations against him were fabricated and how he is trying to prove his innocence through subsequent lawsuits.

"I was sentenced to labor reeducation because I reported gangsters and local government officials who protected them," he told the Global Times. "And I will fight using the law as my weapon to defend my rights."

Li was once a local business owner in Nanjing. He is very proud of his career with 10 business licenses ranging from food service to car washes. But his life changed on April 10, 2003, when a dozen gangsters broke into his house and held his nephew and sister-in-law at gunpoint.

Defending against demolition

The problems began in 1999 when he refused to move out of his 1,000-square-meter house in Nanjing's Xuanwu district. Following the 2003 incident, thugs followed and harassed Li and his family. He received an eviction order from the Xuanwu district government in May 2006 which said he had to move out of his house or it would be forcibly demolished.

Li filed a lawsuit a month later against the district government demanding that the court overturn the administrative order, to no avail. After an unsuccessful appeal, Li petitioned the National People's Congress and Jiangsu Provincial People's Court, which instructed the Nanjing Intermediate People's Court to rule the order illegal by 2008.

Over the course of his legal activities, Li, who has only a junior high school education, learned to use a computer and posted reports identifying the gangsters that broke into his house and the officials who protected them.

In September 2009, Li was taken to the Xuanwu district police station for an interrogation, where he says an officer struck him several times and laughed at his attempts to file a lawsuit against government officials.

The officer had also told Li that nothing would ever come of his complaints, even if he were to commit suicide in Tiananmen Square. Later, he wrote online that he would rather jump than keep quiet about the injustice.

In 2010, the court finally ruled that the forced demolition order was illegal, but Li's nightmare had only just begun.

Misfortune and misery

"Several police officers stormed in when I was having dinner with some friends on April 16, 2010. They pointed three submachine guns at me and said if I moved a muscle, they would open fire," Li said, recalling the incident that took place nearly three years ago. He said it still feels like it happened yesterday.

"I knew it was about the online posts, but I was not afraid of them because I didn't violate any laws," Li said. Police officers then took him to a detention center, where he stayed until April 27. He was then told that he would be sent to a labor reeducation center for his online activity and that his words had disturbed the public order. Li and his lawyers tried to show that he was being held against the law, but authorities refused to recognize their argument.

An official at the detention center actually called Li's fiancée to say he would be released on April 27 as Li was arguing for his innocence. Detention center authorities promised him his freedom under the condition that he drop his lawsuits against government officials, police and gangsters. Li refused and was put into a forced labor center on May 27 without a formal notice from the city's committee, which is supposed to make such decisions.

"I worked 15 hours a day and only got a three-day break for the Spring Festival. I worked nonstop on other holidays. If I got sick, I still had to work," Li said, adding that a fellow inmate once broke a finger on the assembly line and had to keep working after receiving very basic medical treatment.

"Men made shoes and women made jeans. Six yuan ($1) in food subsidies was allotted from the government every day, but the center used less than half of the money and fed us boiled vegetables without using a single drop of oil. The output was sold to foreign countries but we didn't get paid and no one knows where the income goes," Li said.

He said he also discovered that many of his fellow inmates were placed in the reeducation center without due process.

Victims and victory

Li has prepared more than 100 pages of documents in relation to his case, and he can spout off legalese in a way that makes the listener forget his humble education. With 23 administrative suits and two civil cases of his own, Li never imagined that others would approach him for help. It came as a surprise that he was building a reputation as a petition pioneer online.

After he was released from the detention center in April 2011, strangers began seeking his help.

"I helped them write about their cases online because I do believe this helps. I offered them free representation in court because there are things that lawyers are afraid to say but I am not," Li said, adding that he assisted in over 30 cases since his release.

Newly elected Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said at his debut press conference that a plan to reform the labor reeducation system will be released by the end of 2013. For Li, this is a ray of hope.

"I have learned legal language with help from some lawyers, but most of the victims I know are legally mute. I hope the efforts of the new government will be implemented and that more people can reclaim their freedom," Li said.