thugs

www.latimes.com — Using a crude sawed-off stick as a cane, Shi Yaping waited outside a government office, competing with a throng of petitioners to air her grievance over a neighborhood dispute.

The 59-year-old had traveled here from the central province of Hubei to take advantage of a centuries-old Chinese custom that grants citizens the right to bring unsettled complaints to a regional panel of inquiry.

www.iht.com — The police: We're just kindly reminding you. If you break the law, of course there are corresponding punishments, and it will surely not be like this, sitting here drinking tea.
Ma: You mean interrogation? I've already been through that. But what is this reminder, really, a warning or a threat?
The police: We're friends, and we don't want our friends to run into trouble.
Ma: But as I've said, we're not sitting here as friends. We are the ruler and the ruled.