|
|
| |
Child's death turns up heat on China's
police
By Miao Ye
HONG KONG -
Now that SARS is yesterday's news, a new domestic issue
is quickly garnering nationwide attention in China. The
controversy surrounds the unnecessary death of Li Siyi,
a three-year-old girl who was the daughter of a
heroin-addicted mother in Chengdu, capital of
southwestern China's Sichuan province. The issue has
replaced severe acute respiratory syndrome as the
hottest chatroom topic in the country, with the majority
of opinion-holders extremely angry and disappointed -
but not with the girl's mother.
The driving force
behind public anger is the perception of Chinese police
as abusers of authority who care little for the people
they are supposed to protect. This perception had
already been fueled by the March death of Sun Zhigang, a
27-year-old graphic designer at Guangzhou Daqi Garment
Co in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei province.
He was killed on March 20 after being detained three
days before because of not carrying valid
identification. Although his employer provided the
relevant document within hours of his arrest, Sun was
not released from detention by police and ended up
getting beaten to death by his cellmates.
According to the Chengdu Shangbao newspaper last
Sunday, the more recent of the two events took place in
the Qingbaijiang district of Chengdu. On June 4, Li
Guifang, a heroin-addicted mother of one, locked her
three-year-old daughter at home and disappeared. It was
not until the evening of June 21, when the woman's
neighbor smelled an unpleasant odor and called police,
that the incident was brought to light. When police
officers broke through the door and entered the house,
the toddler had starved to death in the apartment's
bedroom.
Initially it seemed an open-and-shut
case of a negligent parent. However, when Chengdu
Shangbao reporters investigated the case further on
Monday, the day after breaking the story, they
discovered a new and disturbing element.
Li had
left her daughter locked up at home on June 4 and went
to Jintang county, 10 kilometers outside her residential
district, where she aimed to steal anything she could
that was of value in order to support her heroin habit.
She was caught by police and sent to a rehabilitation
center on theft and drug charges.
Upon her
arrest, Li knelt and pleaded with police to allow her to
return home to release her daughter to her relatives
before being taken to the detention center. The police
officers did not agree, nor did they take measures to
verify her repeated claim that her toddler was home
alone. They would not call the local police station on
Li's street or notify any of her relatives (she has two
sisters and one brother). Her daughter was therefore
left at home, where she starved and died alone.
According to the Procedures for Compulsory Drug
Addiction Rehabilitation issued by the State Council on
1995, drug takers must be rehabilitated. A compulsory
rehabilitation decision shall be given to an addict
before he/she joins any rehabilitation center. The law
also stipulates that within three days after the
decision being made, the addict's family, employer and
local police station must be notified. However, these
regulations were ignored by the police officers involved
in this case.
The case has stirred widespread
anger. A typical Internet posting said: "I'm also a
mother. I believe that even if a mother is scourged by
drugs, addiction aside, she is still a nice mother with
a conscience. She knelt and begged for help to rescue
her child after being arrested, which means that she's a
qualified mother." Another person commented: "After
reading the article, my heart was broken and tears ran
down my cheeks. Public servants, what a joke. Where's
their humanity? Are they humans? I'm so angry."
This incident followed the conclusion of the Sun
Zhigang case. Amid public pressure, a total of 12 people
were found guilty of beating Sun to death, receiving
death penalties or terms of imprisonment ranging from
three years to life. Another positive result from the
case is that the central government has annulled the
decades-old "Measures for Internment and Deportation of
Urban Vagrants and Beggars" and promulgated new
regulations on aid to the homeless and beggars.
Police officials in Chengdu have obviously drawn
lessons from the Sun Zhigang case in Guangzhou when
handling the Li issue. With one hand they quickly
arrested those associated with Li Siyi's death and with
the other blocked all follow-up reports by media.
According to the local government on Wednesday,
investigations found that police stations in the
outskirts of Jintang county and the United Village of
Qingbaijiang District in Chengdu had made calls to
families of Li Guifang but nobody answered the phone.
Police officers therefore ignored her begging and didn't
attach any importance to it. Officers from the two
police stations that imposed compulsory rehabilitation
on Li Guifang have been determined to be responsible for
the death of little Li Siyi.
Chengdu police are
refusing access to information regarding the case for
all local media, but the reporter who broke the story
for the Chengdu Shangbao has disseminated her story via
the Internet on online bulletin boards such as
bbs.people.com and forum.xinhuanet.com. While attempts
have been made to suppress postings related to the
story, the size and speed of the Internet and its huge
popularity in China have rendered such efforts futile.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com
for information on our sales and syndication policies.)
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
| |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
