China News and Current Events

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China urges restraint amid unrest
Fears are mounting over job cuts as China's export-driven economy slows [AFP]

The Chinese government has urged local officials to exercise restraint when dealing with social issues in the face of mounting unrest triggered by concerns over jobs and the economy.

The call came a day after hundreds of taxi drivers clashed with police in the southern city of Guangzhou, and coincided with the release of a World Bank report cutting its 2009 growth forecast for China from 9.2 per cent to 7.5 per cent.

The state-run Xinhua news agency quoted Zhou Yongkang, the Communist party secretary of the public security ministry, as saying that officials should provide citizens with proper outlets to air public grievances to avoid violent unrest and try to resolve disputes quickly.

Zhou, who is also a member of China's powerful Politburo Standing Committee, said at a government conference in eastern Zhejiang province on Monday: "More channels should be opened to solicit the people's opinions and local government should spare no effort to solve their problems.

"All-out efforts should be made to improve people's livelihood and maintain social stability."

Separately on Monday, Meng Jianzhu, another minister in the public security ministry, spoke of "lots of social problems affecting stability under the current circumstances", according to a Xinhua report.

Jianzhu "urged local officials to be sober-minded and fully realise the importance and urgency of safeguarding social stability".

String of incidents

The taxi drivers' clash with police in Guangzhou on Monday came during a protest against the alleged beating of a driver by an official.

The violence was the latest in a string of recent incidents, including strikes by taxi drivers, protests by laid-off workers and a riot involving thousands of people over a government resettlement plan, and comes as China's export-driven growth slows and companies shed staff.

The taxi drivers were shown scuffling with police on Hong Kong's Cable TV during a march to protest against the weekend beating of a taxi driver by three drunken men, one of whom claimed to be a city official, according to local media reports.

The authorities denied any of the attackers were officials and detained the three who had beaten the driver. Television images also showed some protesters being dragged by police to waiting vehicles.

Wu Sha, the head of Guangzhou's public security bureau, urged the drivers to remain calm and pledged to resolve the matter in accordance with the law.

Xinhua said the protesters had dispersed by noon on Monday.

Rising unrest

Protests and incidents of unrest have risen in China in recent weeks, with mass factory closures and protests by newly laid-off workers in Guangdong province, riots in northwestern Gansu province and a mass petition in Beijing.

Residents said heavy-handed methods employed by government forces, including the use of tear gas to disperse protesters, fan public anger and exacerbate the riots.

The World Bank said on Tuesday that China's downturn should worsen in the first half of 2009 as the global crisis hits it in earnest and exports weaken.

The Bank said that Beijing's $600bn stimulus plan announced this month should help to offset sharp declines in global and domestic demand.

Al Jazeera English - Asia-Pacific - China urges restraint amid unrest

 

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Tensions grow as Chinese riot police stand guard in Tibetan town
By CHARLES HUTZLER
The Associated Press

XIAHE, China | Chinese paramilitary police with riot shields and batons abruptly took up posts Monday on the main street of this Tibetan town, disrupting the bustle of Buddhist pilgrims.

The action was a reminder of China’s determined control of the region. With some Tibetans pushing harder against Chinese rule, the communist government is intent on pacifying the area.

The show of force Monday was meant to deter unrest while a court sentenced a group of Tibetans for taking part in large antigovernment protests in March in Xiahe, a small town abutting a complex of golden-roofed temples.

Although the verdicts were not publicly announced, the trial also seemed timed to answer the complaints of the Dalai Lama and other exiled leaders meeting in India last weekend that patience with China’s domination was thinning.

Seven months after Tibetans across western China exploded in the largest uprising against Chinese rule in nearly 50 years, the authoritarian government is adjusting tactics. Police checkpoints and guard posts in place for months are suddenly dismantled, only to reappear without warning days later.

“We are in the grip of the Communist Party. Tibet is occupied. The Dalai Lama has fled to India. My heart is sad,” said a monk who has studied at Xiahe’s Labrang monastery for 15 years.

On high-altitude grasslands 90 miles to the south, the 200-year-old Xicang monastery, site of a demonstration in March, was open again for visitors, but tense.

www.kansascity.com | 11/24/2008 | Tensions grow as Chinese riot police stand guard in Tibetan town

 

[Flintlock]

2,000 riot in China's Gansu province

The demonstrators, angered over a plan to raze a city center in Longnan, burn cars and battle police with rocks, iron bars and axes. A Communist Party office is overrun and 60 officials are injured.
By John M. Glionna
November 19, 2008
Reporting from Beijing -- An angry crowd of about 2,000 rioted in China's impoverished Gansu province over a government plan to demolish a downtown area, torching cars and attacking a local Communist Party office, injuring 60 officials, state-run media reported Tuesday.

The violence 700 miles southwest of Beijing was one of the most marked instances of social unrest to grip China in recent months. It was sparked by government plans to relocate the city of Longnan's administrative center after May's devastating earthquake, according to the New China News Agency.
At one point, rioters met a surging wall of armed police officers with a hail of rocks, bricks, bottles and flowerpots. The crowd later confronted police with iron bars, axes and hoes as protesters tried to hijack a firetruck and smashed windows and office equipment in two government buildings.

The state-run press has reported on numerous picketings and demonstrations that have broken out across China in recent weeks, including a two-day strike by disgruntled taxi drivers in the city of Chongqing, about 300 miles south of Longnan.

Activists warn that tensions over the sudden downturn in the Chinese economy could provoke similar public outbursts, even though police have made efforts not to immediately resort to violence in quelling the riots.

Chinese economists say that rising wages throughout China have led many laborers to expect better working conditions and residents to demand a more accountable government.

"The local government has become the front line of conflict," said Hu Xingdou, an economics professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology. "But there is no channel to allow people to express their will. They lack the right to speak, the right to organize and unionize to represent their interest, therefore they can only use an irrational way by demonstrating or rioting to solve problems."

But government officials recently began to forgo a decades-old policy of swift repression to meet public demonstrations. Following their strike, Chongqing taxi drivers were able to air their grievances in a three-hour meeting with government officials that was available online across China.

The melee in Longnan began when about 30 angry residents gathered Monday outside the party office, but the crowd soon grew much larger, New China News reported.

He Zhouwa, manager of a brick factory, said people were ready to use any means possible to stop the government plan to relocate the city center.

"People are still at the municipal party office compound," he said late Tuesday. "I did not dare to go there, but everyone is talking about this. There were hundreds of petitioners there last night and this morning."

A Longnan city government statement said the protesters, many of whom had come to petition government officials over the loss of their homes and land, were "incited by a few people with ulterior motives."

Glionna is a Times staff writer.

2,000 riot in China's Gansu province - Los Angeles Times

 

[Flintlock]

China's iron fist cracks down to subdue Tibetan rebels


Cameron Stewart, Associate editor | November 08, 2008
Article from: The Australian

IN the ancient back alleys of Tibet's capital, Lhasa, a grim military operation has played out this week, hidden from the eyes of the world. As night falls, hundreds of Chinese troops fan out across this rebellious city, armed with riot shields and assault rifles.
China uses iron fist to subdue Tibetans

They set up sentry posts on street corners and dispatch patrols in groups of six soldiers, three with shields and three with guns.

These patrols spend the night walking down the lanes of Lhasa's Tibetan quarter, looking for any signof dissent. They glare at me asthey pass, angry at the presence of a foreigner.

When the sun rises, the soldiers do not melt away, but are replaced by a new rotation of troops. The military stranglehold on Lhasa by day is maintained with one chilling addition -- snipers are installed on rooftops around the city's most holy site, the Jokhang Temple, ready to train their guns on the hundreds of Tibetan pilgrims praying in Barkhor Square below.

Only months after the Beijing Olympics, there is no post-Games euphoria in Tibet.

Hopes of greater autonomy and freedom have been stifled by Beijing, which -- stung by bloody anti-Chinese riots in March and by the indignity of the subsequent Olympic torch relay protests -- has come down on Tibetans with an iron fist.

During four days in Lhasa this week -- the first visit to Tibet by an Australian journalist since the March riots that left up to 200 people dead -- I witnessed a city creaking under the weight of the Chinese military.

In meeting local Chinese government officials, it was apparent that Beijing has lost patience with those Tibetans who oppose its rule and has chosen the path of zero tolerance.

The heavy military presence betrays China's unspoken fear that it is losing, rather than winning, the hearts and minds of local Tibetans, who accuse Beijing of subjugating their culture and religion to preserve national unity.

In an interview with The Weekend Australian, the vice-governor of the Tibet Autonomous Region, Bai Ma Cai Wang, reveals that China has recently boosted its security presence in Lhasa above and beyond the crackdown that followed the March riots. This is China's first public acknowledgment that it has beefed up its security forces in Tibet.

"In order for Tibet's stability and for people's safety and for people's desire for security and order, the Government has moderately adjusted the presence of the police force on the street," he says.

Bai Ma says the Government fears a repeat of the March riots, which he says were the work of the exiled Dalai Lama and his supporters. "After the March 14 riots, the Dalai Lama and his followers have speeded up their separatist activities."

Despite being the spiritual leader of the Tibetan Buddhist population, the Dalai Lama has been airbrushed from view in Lhasa by the Chinese, who accuse him of being a political activist for an independent Tibet. There are no pictures or portraits of him in public areas, and Tibetans are reluctant to praise him in public, fearing retribution.

"The image of the Dalai Lama in Tibetan people's minds has already gone away," says Bai Ma. But the long lines of Tibetans waiting to pay homage to the tombs of former Dalai Lamas in Lhasa's imposing Potala Palace, and the thousands of passionate Buddhist pilgrims who prostrate themselves each day outside the Jokhang Temple suggest otherwise.

I visited Tibet with News Limited journalist Steve Lewis and federal Liberal MP Michael Johnson, vice-chairman of the Australia-China Parliamentary Friendship group, at the invitation of the Chinese Government, which urged us: "Tell Australians what you have heard and seen about the truth in Tibet."

This gave us access to high-level Communist Party officials, parliamentarians and local governors in Lhasa, but the official program included no meetings with senior Buddhists and no one whose views strayed from the official line.

When I asked for permission to visit Drapchi prison, where at least 202 people involved in the March riots remain incarcerated, I was refused.

It was only when we slipped away from our hotel at night and found some of the few Tibetans who spoke English that we heard alternative views. Even then they were reluctant to talk, fearing they might be seen or overheard by the authorities. One monk told us there were "more and more Chinese, more and more soldiers" in Lhasa in recent weeks.

But no one will speak out, he says, because of fears they will be reported to the police. "Detectives, they listen to what you say ... sometimes (Barkhor) square is full of detectives listening in."

He says Tibetans "feel very bad" about the situation but are powerless to stop it. Another monk claimed that the Chinese had installed listening devices in the main tourist sites where Westerners might interact with Tibetans, and said no one felt safe talking to foreigners about the political situation in Tibet.

On Monday, we witnessed a group of monks being placed in a police van and taken away but attempts to get an explanation were unsuccessful.

The Chinese authorities have gone to extraordinary lengths to monitor local Tibetans, installing CCTV cameras on buildings and deploying plainclothes police as well as the more overt scrutiny of the large numbers of uniformed police and soldiers.

In interviews with local Chinese officials, their frustration with the situation was palpable. They cannot understand why years of economic growth in Tibet have failed to quell Tibetan demands for greater autonomy or independence from China. There is little understanding or acceptance that Tibetans may have different priorities.

In meetings this week, Chinese officials quoted statistics showing vast improvements in the health, housing, wellbeing and life expectancy of the Tibetans. The Chinese Government has poured billions of dollars into Tibet's economy, with state subsidies accounting for 75 per cent of the gross domestic product.

The results can be seen in and around Lhasa, with wide new roads, upmarket fashion stores and whitegoods stores boasting widescreen televisions. There is a thriving middle class of fashionably dressed locals with mobile phones glued to their ears and driving the latest cars.

The problem is that almost all of this middle class in Lhasa are Han Chinese immigrants, rather than local Tibetans who are primarily herdsmen and farmers and lack the literacy skills and education to seize the opportunities created by the Chinese investment. "While a minority of Tibetans have been rewarded with state jobs, the majority of Tibetans, who are poorly equipped to access new economic opportunities, have been marginalised," says Ben Hillman, a Tibet expert from the Australian National University's China Institute.

So the frustration of local Tibetans goes beyond the eroding of their culture and traditions under Chinese rule -- it is also an economic development issue similar to many around the world where an indigenous people are marginalised by more commercially successful immigrants.

There are signs Chinese officials realise their mistake in focusing too heavily on infrastructure rather than on the Tibetans themselves.

"The education program in Tibet is still not satisfactory," says Wang Jinjun, vice-director-general of the State Council Information Office. "The policy now is to better tackle the issue of herdsmen and farmers."

The economic plight of Tibetans has not been helped by the March riots, which all but killed tourism. Shops and cafes are empty and there is barely a foreign tourist to be seen.

Tibetans have only themselves to blame for this, because so many of them supported the riots, in which 1317 people were arrested, says Wang De Wen, of the Tibet People's Congress.

The riots "were organised by Tibet separatists headed by the Dalai Lama and his followers, who are not willing to see the great leap forward in the development of Tibet, so they instigated violent incidents which involved the smashing, the grabbing, the looting and the setting fire to shops," says Wang. "This violent incident has wreaked havoc on the economic situation and the life of the Tibet people and has cost 320 million yuan ($70 million) since March."

The deputy secretary-general of the Tibet People's Congress, Tonga, was reluctant to talk about those who were detained after the riots, but claimed the majority of Tibetans involved now regretted their actions.

"After our re-education program most of them will regret what they have done," Tonga says. When pressed further on what this means he adds: "A relevant government official briefed them on what was right and what was wrong."

Tibetan officials we spoke to denied all claims that the religious freedom of Tibetans was being curtailed. The head of religious affairs of the Tibet Autonomous Region, Kalsang, denied widely reported views in the West that monks were required to denounce the Dalai Lama as part of "patriotic education" programs in monasteries.

He was partly contradicted several days later by Wang Jinjun who conceded that monks in Tibet were being given "legal information programs" in which they were told not to mix religion with politics.

The most striking aspect of the meetings with Chinese officials was the extent of their hostility towards the Dalai Lama who, along with the the self-styled Tibetan government in exile in India, is blamed for fomenting the uprising and for turning the Tibet issue into a cause celebre in the West.

The Chinese dismiss the Dalai Lama's repeated assertion that he seeks only greater autonomy for Tibet, rather than independence.

When I ask whether China's problems in Tibet might be eased by granting greater autonomy while still retaining national control of the region, Wang Jinjun is dismissive, saying it would return Tibet to its feudal origins. "Tibet will not be reduced to a backwater society which features theocratic rule," he says.

The human dimension of this intractable problem can best be seen by taking a walk through Lhasa, where on my last day I saw a group of Tibetan women, with their babies strapped to their backs, talking and laughing under the watchful eye of a rooftop sniper.

China's iron fist cracks down to subdue Tibetan rebels | The Australian

 

[Flintlock]

Riot in Shenzhen
Police attacked over motorcyclist's death; calm restored later

The aftermath of Friday's riot during which protesters attacked a police station in Shenzhen. The family of a dead motorcyclist had thought his death was caused by police there, and attacked the station with hundreds of others. -- PHOTO: AFP
Shenzhen - Hundreds of rioters attacked police in Shenzhen on Friday afternoon after a motorcyclist died near a checkpoint. The violence continued until yesterday morning, when calm was restored in China's southern economic powerhouse.

Anger flared when Mr Li Guochao, 31, crashed into a lamp-post after a local official threw a walkie-talkie at him as he sped towards a checkpoint set up by a sub-district office, according to a statement from the public security bureau in the city of more than eight million.

Mr Li's family, who thought the mishap was caused by the police of a nearby district, attacked their station on Friday afternoon. They were joined by hundreds of others, some of whom burned a police car, the statement added.

The protest was the latest in a series of confrontations over social issues in China, where thousands of riots erupt each year, many stemming from grievances over abuse of power, corruption or land grabs.

The street where the violence took place had returned to normal yesterday afternoon. There was a beefed-up police presence outside the station where the riots took place.

Mr Li, who had no riding licence, had been stopped at the checkpoint in the city's Bao'an district while riding his motorcycle, which bore no number plate, the police statement said.

An official tried to block his path when he turned back at a crossroad, but seeing that he was going to crash through the checkpoint, threw the walkie-talkie at him. Mr Li lost control of his motorcycle and crashed into the lamp-post, the statement said.

He was taken to hospital where he died a few hours later.

Mr Li's relatives gathered about 30 people and carried his body to the police station, where they 'smashed things' and set off firecrackers, the statement added.

By 5pm, more than 400 people had gathered at the police detachment with more than 2,000 others watching nearby. Some people threw stones and set fire to a police car. Police were able to disperse the crowd only at 2am. There were no other reports of injuries.

The checkpoint official has been detained by police, while the official Xinhua news agency said Shenzhen's public security bureau had established that police had shown restraint in handling the unrest. People living in the Bao'an area said the checkpoints were set up to enforce a ban on motorcycles following a spate of muggings by riders who snatched handbags.

China's top police official has urged officers to avoid inflaming protests at a time when social unrest is easily ignited.

In June, residents in Weng'an town in south-western Guizhou province torched and ransacked police headquarters and government offices after allegations spread that police had covered up a girl's rape and murder.

AFP, Xinhua, Reuters

Breaking News

 

[Flintlock]

Execution looms for China businessman
Natalie Behring / For The Times
Ran Chen, seen here in Beijing in April, has led the effort to get Chinese authorities to spare the life of her father, Wo Weihan, expected to be executed Thursday.
Beijing accuses Wo Weihan of spying for Taiwan. His execution is expected this week despite a campaign against it led by his daughter and her American husband.
By David Pierson
November 26, 2008
A Chinese businessman and scientist accused of spying for Taiwan is expected to be executed Thursday in Beijing despite a rare international campaign waged by American and European diplomats to save his life, a family member said Tuesday.

American, French, Czech and Austrian diplomats urged the Chinese government to reconsider the case of Wo Weihan, 59, who was arrested in 2005 and sentenced to death after he allegedly confessed to passing information to Taiwan about Chinese missiles and the health of senior Chinese leaders.

China's Supreme People's Court began reviewing the sentence eight months ago, but court officials last week told Wo's wife that she should submit a request to see her husband.

The procedure is traditionally a precursor to an execution and signals an end to the court's review, human rights experts say.

The notification from court officials stunned family members, who had spent more than a year drawing attention to Wo's plight, a rare case among untold numbers of Chinese who face execution each year.

Efforts to save Wo's life are being led by his daughter, Ran Chen, an Austrian citizen, and her husband, Michael Rolufs, an American from New Orleans whose siblings in Pasadena also aided the campaign.

"We always had optimism, but it was getting to be less and less. Now it's reached rock bottom," Rolufs said in a phone interview Tuesday from Beijing. "We asked for a transparent legal system, but it's just not here."

Wo's supporters have questioned the credibility of the government's case, arguing that Wo was coerced into making a confession that he later retracted.

They say Wo, a biomedical researcher based in Beijing, was prohibited from seeing a lawyer until 10 months after his arrest and that documented evidence against him was not made available for his defense.

The Supreme People's Court review process was introduced in 2007, part of the central government's efforts to reform China's capital punishment system.

John Kamm, executive director of the Dui Hua Foundation in San Francisco, a human rights group, said it was impossible to verify that reforms were working.

Kamm said Chinese court officials told him that 15% of death sentences had been reversed during the first six months of this year. But because defendants were tried behind closed doors, the figure could not be independently corroborated. Additional figures for this year were not available.

"I'm very, very distressed," Kamm said. "I thought they were serious about implementing reform."

Kamm said an execution was inherently damaging to China's national interests, considering that relations between China and Taiwan are at an all-time high and that the United Nations recently urged China to improve its human rights record.

Wo's daughter, who last spent time with him at her wedding in 2004 in Austria, learned Tuesday that she and her stepmother will be permitted to see Wo on Thursday at the prison hospital in the Chinese capital where he is being held. Rolufs said Wo is expected to be executed the same day.

Pierson is a Times staff writer.

Execution looms for China businessman - Los Angeles Times

 

[Flintlock]

China slashes interest rates as panic spreads

The People's Bank of China cut interest rates by more than 1pc point as the economy crumbles and millions of jobs are predicted to go ahead of Christmas.

By Malcolm Moore in Shanghai
Last Updated: 12:48PM GMT 26 Nov 2008
The move came just one day after the World Bank predicted that China would grow by 7.5pc next year. The level of growth may appear robust by Western standards, but it would represent the slowest economic expansion in China for the last two decades.

It is also perilously close to the 7pc minimum level of growth that Chinese economists believe is necessary in order to create enough jobs for the 6m university graduates who will enter the jobs market next year.

It is the fourth interest rate cut from the Chinese central bank in the last ten weeks as the government desperately battles an evident economic collapse. "China is out to save itself here," said Patrick Bennett, an analyst with Societe Generale in Hong Kong.

The PBOC reduced its main borrowing rate by 1.08pc points to 5.58pc, the biggest one-off cut since the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997.

In recent weeks, a series of riots across central and southern China have flowered as disgruntled employees aired their grievances at the downturn.

Today, around 500 protesters rioted at the Kai Da toy factory in Dongguan in the Pearl River delta, flipping over a police car and trashing computers in a dispute over payoffs to 80 fired workers. Tens of thousands of factories across the region have already shut their gates.

Yin Weimin, China's Social Security minister, has revealed that employment is the Communist Party's number one concern in the downturn and said the "situation is critical". Unemployment is expected to rise from 4pc to 4.5pc by the end of the year and anecdotal reports have suggested that 3m people have already been fired in the industrial province of Zhejiang alone.

Two major provinces, Shandong and Hubei, have already responded by banning companies from firing staff without permission from the government.

The Chinese government has also announced a £373bn bailout to stimulate domestic growth by investing in infrastructure. However, only a fifth of the money is likely to come from central government coffers, with the rest coming from a mix of private enterprise and local government funds.

"We're seeing a government that steps in, that is trying to do everything it can to keep growth at a decent rate, and has the financial means and the administrative capacity to make that happen," said Louis Kuijs, the head of the World Bank's China economics analysis.

"All my colleagues were shocked by such a big easing. It signals the government may believe the economic situation is really serious for it to call for such a drastic move," said Liu Dongliang, a currency analyst at China Merchants Bank in Shenzhen.

The reserve requirements of Chinese banks were also cut by 1pc point, and 2pc points for smaller banks, freeing up around 360 billion rmb (£34bn) for lending.


Richard Spencer in Beijing

China slashes interest rates as panic spreads - Telegraph

 

[smeaglegolum]

What should be done to the Chinese spy caught in U.S doing the same?. Should he be executed as well.

I'm against capital punishment in general.

 

[Flintlock]

China's worst subway accident death toll rises to 17
Tue Nov 25, 2008 3:39am GMT

BEIJING (Reuters) - The death toll from a subway tunnel collapse in eastern China has risen to 17, with little hope of finding survivors among four missing, local media reported on Tuesday.

The collapse of a half-built subway tunnel in Hangzhou, capital of China's Zhejiang province, earlier this month swallowed vehicles and a public bus, trapping dozens of people in a deep, 75-metre-long chasm.

The accident, China's deadliest for subway construction, prompted other cities to conduct safety checks on subway projects.

Ten people remained in hospital and local insurance companies had paid 10 million yuan (972,929 pounds) in compensation, a report posted on state-run web portal China.com.cn (???--????) said.

Hangzhou mayor Cai Qi said the accident had exposed "serious problems" in the city's subway construction and ordered authorities to step up safety checks.

"Enhance inspections to uncover and deal with latent safety threats, and earnestly carry out supervision," the Hangzhou Daily, a local Communist Party newspaper, quoted Cai as saying.

The incident has been widely denounced in commentaries carried by official media, but no arrests or punishments have been reported.

China's construction industry has been plagued by corruption, poor standards and shoddy materials as the country's booming economy fuelled a rush to expand infrastructure and housing.

The country's top planning agency and finance ministry this week ordered local governments to guard against blind investment and shoddy projects, as the country allocates funds from a 4 trillion yuan stimulus plan to pump-prime the economy amid the global financial crisis.

(Reporting by Ian Ransom; Editing by Nick Macfie)

China's worst subway accident death toll rises to 17 | World | Reuters

 

[Flintlock]

Yang Jia, a “hero” against Chinese police brutality, executed in Shanghai


The young man killed six policemen in a revenge attack after he was wrongfully arrested and tortured. During his trial he was denied the right to his own counsel. After the trial the sentence was carried out swiftly. China’s government is concerned that he might become a symbol of revolt against police brutality.

Shanghai (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Yang Jia, 28, was executed this morning but has become a hero for many Chinese after killing six policemen as a revenge for his wrongful arrest and torture. The death sentence was carried out after the Supreme People's Court confirmed the verdict.

Mr Yang was convicted in September of killing six policemen and wounding three more at the Zhabei Police Station in Shanghai on 1 July in a revenge attack for being wrongfully arrested on suspicion of stealing a bicycle. He lost an appeal against the sentence last month.

His case has become a lightning rod for police brutality and has led to widespread criticism of the police for its summary methods.

For many people Yang has become another victim who took the law in his own hands to meet out justice against those who are constantly abusing the poor and the more marginalised segments of the population.

At the start of the appeal last month, about a dozen protesters donned t-shirts featuring Yang's face before they were quickly taken away by police

Underhanded actions by the authorities during Yang’s trial and the speed with which the sentence was executed show how the government is trying to suppress dissent in a country where unrest is becoming increasingly widespread.

Yang was not allowed to pick his own attorney even though his father had found a lawyer. Instead a lawyer from the Zhabei district government was appointed to act on Mr Yang's behalf.

A well-known criminal lawyer had accepted to plead Mr Yang's case in appeal but here too the family was thwarted by the court.

His execution was also marred by oddities. Wang Jinmei, Yang’s mother, visited her son just three days ago, but was not told that it was the last time she would see her son alive.

His family, which lives in Beijing, was told only last night of this morning’s execution.

CHINA Yang Jia, a ?hero? against Chinese police brutality, executed in Shanghai - Asia News

 

[kvLin]

Seems you've found a lot of fun here.Congratulations!

Now some more for you, it's very easy to pick up negative news on India.

Faiths Clash, Displacing Thousands in East India

Incomplete List of Major Domestic Conflicts in India Since 1993

and click here to worry about your super dumper India
List of Terrorist, Insurgent and Extremist Groups in India

India among most terror nations (by Global Terrorism Indicator)

and Oh, there're also extra little gift
India Exposed by an Indian girl
a stupid girl disgracing her homeland, but try denying what she described in the video.

good luck

 

[Flintlock]

^^Off-topic. Go somewhere else to post your crap.

 

[kvLin]

Come on, I could certainly post it one by one as new thread,but don't wanna waste time and web resources of PFF.

you seem to be a China negative news collector and I'm just collecting some of yours in order to contribute to your thread, which is not off topic at all.

enjoy it.

 

[Black Stone]

Super Soaker, she's good.

 

[shchinese]

I love such emotional posts here by some of the Indian members.

It lets us to have a far better understanding about their way of thinking and habbits.