Only in China do you do autopsies in front of the house of the deceased…

Li Shufen, the girl whose mysterious and contested death was the cause of the Weng’an incident of June 28, has had yet another autopsy performed on her corpse, this time in front of her house where naturally, as is the case in China, it became a spectator event with people from around the village coming to take a gander. The issue with her death, and what sparked the anger that caused the mass violence on June 28, was the allegation that Li was raped and murdered, rather than suicidal, as eye-witnesses contend. The official story is still that she jumped off a bridge, into the river, and while her friends attempted to save her, they failed and she died. In previous autopsies they’d claimed that no evidence of sexual intercourse was discovered, thus discounting the rape aspect of the story. The results have not been released to the family yet.

Autopsies seem to me, to be pretty grim. They must have strong stomachs down there. Especially to see it done on someone that you knew, a family no less. Ugh.

Three elderly Hainan residents protest government use of land

What’s interesting about this is that their land was taken and used for a police sub-station (pai chu suo), but that was not something recent, but rather happened way back in 1974. They felt they were shafted then, and kept apply for some kind of hearing on the matter of this land but to no avail. On June 6, 2008 the government rejected another appeal from Lin Hongqi, one of the elderly protesters, saying that her papers and materials were not acceptable. By law there is a 60 day period in which the applicant can appeal for a second hearing. However, before the 60 days was even close to being up, the gov’t decided to unequivocally give the land-use rights to the police, who planned on constructing a larger building on the same site. Driven to desperation these elderly protesters felt they had nothing left to lose, and so lay down on the ground as a form of protest.

据一位其称为土地产权所有人之一的林树芬亲属林鸿祺介绍，他们全家几辈已在海口市博爱南横路12号居住了60多年。该宅地为祖上林天就于1948年8月置下并具有当时合法的土地所有权证。解放后该宅地也没有被政府没收或征用，土地所有权一直由其家所拥有。1957年3月26、27和28日，林家曾连续3天在《新海南日报》刊登海口市民政局公告，重新确定了土地所有权。1974年8月16日海口市公安局博爱派出所（原为海口市红坎坡派出所）在未与林家及其他拥有该地土地合法产权人办理任何手续、也未作任何补偿的情况下，强行拆除该地上的草房和基础庭院，建起了派出所办公用房（即海口市公安局博爱派出所所在地）。多年来，林树芬等人多次口头和书面向省市有关部门反映申诉土地所有权的问题，一直未能解决。

Three teenagers involved in Weng’an incident surface

These three people—a female surnamed Wang, a man called Chen Guangquan and a man called Liu Yanchao—were there when Liu Shufen, the girl that died, was supposedly trying to jump off a bridge. If you’ve been following the news you know that the family of the deceased girl believed that she had been raped and killed by the son of a local official, and confronted the police about it. The girl’s uncle was beaten, which sparked the riots and the partial destruction of a government building. Now, to appease the people, a number of senior officials have been sacked, and the investigation into the girl’s death will be reopened.

The three teenagers gave a press conference in which they basically repeated their version of events: they had told her not to jump, one of them left, she then decided to jump anyway, one of the guys jumped in, could not rescue her, nearly drowned himself, and the other guy jumped in and saved him, but neither of them could ascertain the whereabouts of Liu.

I read another report where they said that during autopsies performed on Liu’s body that there was no sign that sexual intercourse, forced or otherwise, had taken place. Who knows. Of course, no one really knows what happened, and so it becomes more interesting for how it reveals the feelings of the masses
towards their government, especially since there were so many other grievances aside from the death
and the beating—the local gov’t seems to have often used “rough-shod” methods to evict people and do whatever they wanted. A typical Chinese story, the only difference being that it was egregious enough
that the death and beating could incite mass violence.

Sichuan officials punished for earthquake relief related issues

Just saw this on Sina. In the city of Ya’An in Sichuan has “fired” three township level party
secretaries and given serious warnings to several other cadres. This was over irregularities
in how the relief efforts were coordinated and handled; for example, how things were
distributed, the speed and efficiency with the work was done, etc. The article states that
the amount of people filing complaints with the local xin fang was, as of June 19,
already 679. I wonder if it was just poor planning, general idiocy, or corruption at work? Or
some combination of all of the above?