Fili’s world

According to Hong Kong newspaper reports, information from Ruian city (Wenzhou), 30-year-old female teacher Dai Haijing fell out of her apartment to her death on August 18. The police said that she committed suicide, but the residents believed that it was related to her husband. Furthermore, they believed that someone paid off the authorities. Therefore, they demanded a government investigation.

The world has a double-standard approach towards China, which makes no sense. Sometimes China makes frontpage huge-font headlines and at other times no one seems to care, even about important stories. "What's important?" you might ask. This next story is, and it seems that the west is completely ignoring it, maybe preferring to focus on sex-blog scandals instead. Thanks to ESWN, once again, for translating the main articles regarding this story, all news-quotes are taken from his translations.

A Chinese high-school teacher was found dead. Chinese police has filed a report concluding that the teacher has probably committed suicide, but the students were not so sure. In what seems like a rare event in China, the high-school kids have decided to become active and demonstrate against what they believe to be is extreme injustice. The students first issued a public open letter detailing their doubts (summarized) :

The incident took place two days ago.  Why has law enforcement refused to investigate?  Why is the legal doctor late?  Why are the people's guide — the media — also late?  We don't understand!  In a society under the rule of law, something infuriatingly unjust has happened!  Our rights become so pale and powerless in the face of money!

Here is a summary of our doubts :

2. If she wanted to kill herself, would she be wearing only her underwear??!  Our teacher is a pretty woman who wants to look well.  Would she want to die in such indignity?

5. When we saw the body of our teacher, she had bruises everywhere.  Although her limbs were intact, her cranium was burst open.  She died a horrible death.

7. The law enforcement department refuses to intervene in this matter.  Justice is so pale and powerless in front of money.  How will the people ever trust the government again?

But - It didn't stop there, 10 thousand people gathered to demonstrate against the ‘coverup' over the teacher's death (summarized) :

Demonstrations again erupted yesterday outside the city government compound in Ruian city in Wenzhou , Zhejiang province , in protest against alleged police mishandling of the death of a high school teacher.

A witness said thousands of residents started to gather in the afternoon in the square in front of the government compound and by 7.30pm up to 10,000 protesters were in the area. At least 700 riot police were called in and erected barriers around the compound, but there were no reports of casualties.

Dai Haijing was found dead near her apartment in suspicious circumstances on August 18. Her family claimed she was killed by her husband, wealthy Ruian businessman Xie Deyong.

More photos and explainations are available on ESWN .

A few days later, ESWN write a comment "I whine", which I completely relate to -

I write about The Case of Dai Haijing and I tell you that all mentions about the case at Chinese forums, blogs and vblogs have been obliterated.  So what is the rest of the world doing about it? … But I find it extremely disappointing that the English-language China-themed blogosphere is totally and thoroughly disinterested in this matter.  Instead, the sole response through Buzzmetiric/Google Blogsearch/Technorait is at a Japanese site Real China ブログ名とおり、中国の真実を紹介します.  So I am being an advocate once again, but what is your response?  Another yawn?

Peking Duck gets the point:

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. [...] 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 (fiLi - link removed, too much to watch, if you want- visit Peking Duck) ; 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.

More links :

• Video1,   Video2 .
• Danwei mention.
• The Editors' blog.

This story is important is many regards. Although history shows that mob revolutions in China have extreme effects, not always for the best, it seems that the mobs and netcitizens of current China have some sort of power, whether it's against a naughty foreigner or against their own government. Protests are sometimes possible, police corruption is not always tolerated. In a country ranked very low on "freedom" scale, this story might give food for thought.