are pushing back = ?

Context:

Lin Mingming said he protested the transfer of his father, who suffered major head injuries, to an old-age home with Mr. Chen. But he said he was told: “This is a political issue. You have no other choice.”

Some victims are pushing back. Mr. Cao’s parents remain in the morgue of Wenzhou People’s Hospital No. 2 while he and his brother seek legal advice. His brother, Henry Liheng Cao, 32, suffered a massive abdominal hemorrhage, a ruptured spleen and kidney, broken ribs and a fractured ankle. He remains hospitalized in Wenzhou.

“This train crash took the lives of my beloved parents, wrecked my good health and threw the future of my family into jeopardy,” said Henry Cao, an entrepreneur from Colorado Springs. “Fairness and justice is all that I ask. There are serious doubts whether such basic tenets are obtainable here.”

More:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/21/world/asia/anger-and-suspicion-as-survivors-await-chinese-crash-report.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1