On the night of January 29 this year, five peasants were delivered into Jinning detention centre, a dark little facility in the province of Yunnan in southwestern China. They were accused of illegal logging, a lucrative sideline for many farmers in this impoverished region.
It was a routine arrest. But 10 days later one of the men, a 24-year-old named Li Qiaoming, was dead. Presenting his bruised and swollen corpse to shocked parents on February 12, the police said Li had died accidentally during a game of blind man’s buff, or “elude the cat” as it’s called in China. Officers explained to the elderly couple that their son had been chosen as the “cat”, was blindfolded by cellmates, and while chasing the “mice” banged his head into a wall with such force that he died of his injuries four days later. The case was closed and Li’s parents sent back to their village.
But the next night, a Friday, officers on duty in a different department of the Yunnan police – the internet security management division – detected some unusual online activity. The story of Li’s death was being discussed with fervour. Two prominent local bloggers asked how stumbling into a wall could possibly kill someone. Internet bulletin-board users ridiculed the official explanation, suggesting instead that Li had been beaten to death by jail wardens. A cartoon appeared, showing three men in striped prison outfits with their heads stuck in the walls and the floor of a cell.
Nor did the commentary subside over the weekend. Li’s family started voicing their doubts and pain......[rc]
Click here to continue reading
this indepth investigative report
on Human Rights and Intellectual Freedom
© Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2009
July 18, 2009
CHINA: How China polices the internet
.
LONDON, England / Financial Times / Arts & Leisure / July 18, 2009
REPORTAGE
By Kathrin Hille, an FT correspondent in Beijing
On the night of January 29 this year, five peasants were delivered into Jinning detention centre, a dark little facility in the province of Yunnan in southwestern China. They were accused of illegal logging, a lucrative sideline for many farmers in this impoverished region.
It was a routine arrest. But 10 days later one of the men, a 24-year-old named Li Qiaoming, was dead. Presenting his bruised and swollen corpse to shocked parents on February 12, the police said Li had died accidentally during a game of blind man’s buff, or “elude the cat” as it’s called in China. Officers explained to the elderly couple that their son had been chosen as the “cat”, was blindfolded by cellmates, and while chasing the “mice” banged his head into a wall with such force that he died of his injuries four days later. The case was closed and Li’s parents sent back to their village.
But the next night, a Friday, officers on duty in a different department of the Yunnan police – the internet security management division – detected some unusual online activity. The story of Li’s death was being discussed with fervour. Two prominent local bloggers asked how stumbling into a wall could possibly kill someone. Internet bulletin-board users ridiculed the official explanation, suggesting instead that Li had been beaten to death by jail wardens. A cartoon appeared, showing three men in striped prison outfits with their heads stuck in the walls and the floor of a cell.
Nor did the commentary subside over the weekend. Li’s family started voicing their doubts and pain......[rc]
Click here to continue reading
this indepth investigative report
on Human Rights and Intellectual Freedom
© Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2009
On the night of January 29 this year, five peasants were delivered into Jinning detention centre, a dark little facility in the province of Yunnan in southwestern China. They were accused of illegal logging, a lucrative sideline for many farmers in this impoverished region.
It was a routine arrest. But 10 days later one of the men, a 24-year-old named Li Qiaoming, was dead. Presenting his bruised and swollen corpse to shocked parents on February 12, the police said Li had died accidentally during a game of blind man’s buff, or “elude the cat” as it’s called in China. Officers explained to the elderly couple that their son had been chosen as the “cat”, was blindfolded by cellmates, and while chasing the “mice” banged his head into a wall with such force that he died of his injuries four days later. The case was closed and Li’s parents sent back to their village.
But the next night, a Friday, officers on duty in a different department of the Yunnan police – the internet security management division – detected some unusual online activity. The story of Li’s death was being discussed with fervour. Two prominent local bloggers asked how stumbling into a wall could possibly kill someone. Internet bulletin-board users ridiculed the official explanation, suggesting instead that Li had been beaten to death by jail wardens. A cartoon appeared, showing three men in striped prison outfits with their heads stuck in the walls and the floor of a cell.
Nor did the commentary subside over the weekend. Li’s family started voicing their doubts and pain......[rc]
Click here to continue reading
this indepth investigative report
on Human Rights and Intellectual Freedom
© Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2009
