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The girl’s body had been found in a river on Saturday, after she had been missing for two days. Rumors said she had been raped and murdered by two gangsters at the instigation of her classmate, the niece of the county head, whom she had refused to help pass the university entrance exam.
Based on clues provided by local people, the police arrested and questioned three suspects, then released them without further investigation. When the police announced that the death of the pretty, smart and popular girl was a suicide, her family rejected the decision and appealed for justice.
One source said the authorities initially offered the family 3,000 yuan (US$440) as compensation, later increasing this to ten times the amount, but the victim’s family refused this arrangement.
The girl’s uncle went to the police to complain, but was beaten so severely he ended up in a coma, and later died. The girl’s parents were guarding her body at the spot it had been pulled from the river, after the police tried to have her cremated before further investigations could take place.
Upset over the teenager’s death and apparent police complicity in concealing the crime, students from four local high schools protested in front of the Public Security Bureau. The police tried to chase them away, beating some of the students, which further inflamed local people.
One local resident reported on the Internet that the Wengan local police force was under siege inside the Public Security Bureau, surrounded by an angry mob, and firefighters had difficulty accessing burning buildings as the crowds blocked their way.
Eventually as many as 10,000 people gathered, according to some reports. The clash with police resulted in at least three deaths, more than 150 injured, and more than 200 citizens arrested, including 30 high school students, according to reports from China’s online community.
Meanwhile, several hundred people gathered around the girl’s dead body with her parents. When armed police arrived they also encircled the body, as well as government buildings.
Although the official Xinhua News Agency reported that the situation was under control by Sunday morning, some 1,500 riot police were reportedly sent to the area from surrounding regions to track down and arrest organizers and participants in the protests. Provincial officials had arrived and taken command of the situation.
The local government declared the riot an “illegal incident” and called on participants to surrender to police. The official Xinhua News Agency blamed evildoers for inciting the protests among people who were “unaware of the truth.”
China’s Internet watchdogs tried unsuccessfully to prevent information about the riot from spreading. Discussions on domestic online forums were repeatedly deleted, but video footage of the protests showed up on YouTube.
“This isn’t the first such case, and won’t be the last,” commented Zan Aizong, a pro-democracy journalist. Zan pointed out that many similar “mass incidents” had occurred in recent years. They were often prompted by deaths called suicides by police. Suspicions were aroused when the families refused to accept the verdicts and especially when police made hasty efforts to cremate the bodies.
In particular, Zan criticized statements by officials or state media that protests such as the one in Wengan were incited by “people unaware of the truth,” or people with evil intentions. He called on the state media to present evidence to support its version of the “truth,” since it did not match evidence shown in photos and video spreading through the Internet. He also urged the authorities to allow journalists and independent researchers to travel to the scenes of such incidents and file objective, firsthand reports.
Han Sanzhou, another freelance writer, observed that in the state media every protest was illegal, incited by “people unaware of the truth” or people with an axe to grind, and the view of the officials was always correct.
Han said such “mass incidents” resulted from conflicts of interest between the authorities and the general public or a certain group. He quoted Premier Wen Jiabao’s 2005 statement on the government’s major tasks: “to positively prevent and well handle mass incidents; properly deal with conflicts among the people; timely solve problems the people raise and insist on correcting all behavior that harms the people’s interests according to law.”
According to the state media, social order in Wengan has been restored. But media in Hong Kong, attempting to confirm this, were unable to reach the county authorities. No one answered most of the government’s telephones, and if someone did pick up the phone, he or she had “no idea” about the protests. The line for the Public Security Bureau remained busy.
