When I tell you guys to go after a story, I expect you to snap to it. Or else I’ll “whine.”
Well, allow me to take the bait – it is an extraordinary story. And eswn does us a great service presenting it with such meticulous detail. From the article he cites:
Crowds angered by alleged police mishandling of a school teacher’s death attacked government offices in a southern Chinese city, sparking arrests and beatings by riot troops, newspapers and a local hospital said Monday.
Students and local residents of Rui’an’s Tangxia township claimed police falsified a report and colluded with the husband of high school English teacher Dai Haijing, 30, to have her death classified as a suicide, according to Hong Kong newspapers Ta Kung Pao and The South China Morning Post.
The demonstrators also staged a protest at the husband’s factory where they damaged cars and other property.
The protests reflect widespread perceptions that China’s weak and largely opaque legal system is tainted by communist officials’ abuse of power and susceptible to influence by the country’s newly moneyed classes.
For some startling photos, see eswn’s two posts. This isn’t a little protest outside a police station – this is a real riot, and the rioters are surprisingly young and angry. And, if you have the stomach for it, don’t miss the extremely graphic picture he links to; I haven’t seen photos of that many suicides, but does this look like suicide to you? It looks like an awfully inconvenient way to kill oneself.
1
By Chip
I always get queezy when I see pictures of gore, and have never been a fan of action movies. But when its a real person who died in such a horrible way in such an unjust set of circumstances, I force myself to look. Absolutely sick. Kudos to those students for their sense of bravery and justice.
September 12, 2006 @ 12:57 pm | Comment
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By Jeff
Why are you picking on eswn so much lately?
September 12, 2006 @ 6:21 pm | Comment
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By richard
Jeff, I come to praise eswn, not to bury him.
If you look at the post of his that I linked to, he says, in so many words, literally, Pay attention to me, to what I post, and write about it or I will whine and nag until you do. That is what he is saying. I do not editorialize on this. I don’t say it’s bad or good. It is simply a phenomenon I am pointing out: If eswn believes a story is important, he believes he needs to whine and complain if other bloggers and the journalist community do not follow his lead. That is what he says, expressing his disappointment that only one journalist picked up on the story. ” I whine once again and I know that you must be tired of it,” he himself writes. This isn’t necessarily bad – I agree with him, the story deserves more attention, and I jumped to his command and blogged it, praising eswn heartily along the way. Is there some hubris here? I’ll let others be the judge of that. All I can say is that it is, to my eyes, unprecedented. It’s unprecedented for a blogger, at least to my knowledge, to expect both journalists and bloggers to write about a topic en masse because that bloggers says they should. Unprecedented, but again, not necessarily a bad thing, especially when the blogger, as in this case, is pointing to important and fascinating stories. The only comment I make is that we should all simply be aware that eswn sees this as his role and has stated so much in his own words. That’s all. Make of it what you will, but no one can deny that that is what he is saying here.
September 12, 2006 @ 7:54 pm | Comment
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By Martha sans Muffin
Very sad. Both the fact of that woman’s death and the extremely high probability that she was murdered (the photo tells the whole story) and the police will simply cover it up.
Very encouraging on the other hand that this sort of thing is getting coverage. People are brave enough to photograph it and demonstrate on the streets. The PSB will take some of those demostrators away and some will die in custody or never be seen again. Very brave.
September 12, 2006 @ 8:17 pm | Comment
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By Shanghai Slim
I agree that it’s very encouraging to see Average Zhou’s take to the streets over gross official injustice.
Probably many CCP leaders felt a ripple of unease when they saw those photos … but equally probably, that unease vanished quickly as soon as they reached their mistress’ villa.
September 12, 2006 @ 9:44 pm | Comment
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By richard
Average Zhous… I like that.
September 12, 2006 @ 9:50 pm | Comment
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By OtherLisa
Yeah. That looked like a gunshot wound to the BACK of the head – the forehead wound was the exit wound. Now, if you are going to shoot yourself, that’s just not how you would do it.
September 12, 2006 @ 11:41 pm | Comment
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By Visitor
Umm… Not trying to be insensitive, but the exit wound seems too ��clean�� for a high-caliber headshot, and too large for a small-caliber headshot.
While I am no coroner, I have seen quite a few gunshot wounds from various calibers; so I would reframe from making statements or accusations until more facts are present.
Regardless of the circumstances; RIP to her, and prayers to her friends and relatives.
September 15, 2006 @ 12:53 am | Comment