On July 19th in the lobby of the Shenzhen Public Transportation Building, Long held the knife against his neck along with a large piece of white paper proclaiming “To die would prove my innocence,” among other proclamations.

Long claimed that he had been punished for blowing the whistle on his superior Chen Ping, who he alleged had been accepting bribes in the form of cash and cigarettes.

Eventually, a reporter from the newspaper talked Long into putting down the knife, and it was discovered that his neck was already bleeding. The Shenzhen Bus Group denied all of Long’s allegations and maintains it will not renew his contract.

Long said he would continue to try to prove his claims to Shenzhen’s Transportation Committee.

The 43-year-old originally from Hunan province had worked as the bus driver on route 325  for three years before his contract expired on June 30.

According to Long, he had to support his entire family back in Hunan, including a son still in school, parents in their seventies and a wife who is a full-time housewife. Without his monthly bus driver’s income of RMB4,000, he will have no way of supporting them, Long claimed.

Long said it was not in his nature to take such an extreme move, but he could not afford to lose this job.  He showed the reporter a petition signed by 43 fellow drivers pleading for the bus group to renew his contract.

Chen Ping, Deputy Secretary of CPC party branch with the bus group that was accused of taking bribes by Long, refused to comment on the matter, saying Long was no longer an employee.