Made in (The People's Republic of) China: June 2008 Archives
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | The New York Times
18 June 2008
A retired Chinese schoolteacher who criticized the construction of schools that collapsed in last month's powerful earthquake has been detained, a Hong Kong-based human rights organization said Wednesday.
Police detained Zeng Hongling in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, on charges of ''inciting state subversion,'' according to the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy.
Zeng wrote three articles for an overseas Web site that criticized the shoddy construction of many schools that collapsed during the devastating 7.9-magnitude quake centered in Sichuan, killing hundreds of children.
The series of articles titled ''My personal experience in the earthquake'' appeared on www.ObserveChina.com, a Chinese-language Web site hosted in the United States. One was titled ''Earthquake relief efforts fully reveal the true face of Party officials,'' which questions the role of Sichuan officials in relief efforts.
School collapses have become one of the most heated issues in the earthquake recovery process -- and one that local communist leaders seem anxious to suppress.
State-controlled media have largely ignored the topic and parents and volunteers who have questioned authorities have been detained and threatened.
By Cara Anna - The Associated Press - via ABC NEWS
June 15, 2008
A photograph hinting at shoddy school construction was pulled from an exhibition about last month's devastating earthquake, an apparent indication of rising government sensitivity over an issue that has already prompted angry protests from parents of children killed.
The photo showed a hand clutching a twisted piece of steel rebar that looked no thicker than a pencil, taken from the ruins of the middle school in the town of Juyuan that was one of 40 that collapsed in the May 12 quake.
The picture featured prominently among a collection of quake artifacts when it opened to the public last week. By the weekend, though, it was gone. Organizers were reluctant to say exactly why.
"We don't know if we were told to remove the photo," said Wu Zhiwei, assistant to the general manager of Museum Cluster Jianchuan, the organizer of the exhibit and the largest privately run museum in China. "And if we were told to remove the photo, we're not sure we could tell you."
School collapses have become one of the most charged issues in the quake recovery process, and one that local communist leaders seem anxious to suppress.
The entire state-controlled media have almost completely ignored the issue, apparently under the instructions of the propaganda bureau. Parents and volunteers helping them who have questioned authorities about the issue have been rounded up, detained, and threatened.
By Edward Wong | The New York Times
June 13, 2008
Parents who lost children in a particularly horrific school collapse during the May 12 earthquake in Sichuan Province scrapped their plan for a one-month mourning ceremony on Thursday after local officials warned them not to go through with it, two of the parents said.
In telephone interviews, the two parents said the group's members were told not to contact one another and not to stay in the town of Juyuan, the site of the collapse of a middle school that left hundreds of children crushed to death.
Officials spoke to some parents on Wednesday night to persuade them to cancel the memorial service, said the two parents, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal by the government.
On Thursday, the government used buses to take different groups of parents to different sites outside town, the two parents said. There, the parents were given food and water.
Officials have offered the parents who lost a child the equivalent of $1,740 on behalf of the central government and $435 on behalf of the local education department, the two parents said. The parents have been told that they will get more than $4,600 from the central government, but that the money will be distributed in stages.
Government officials could not be reached on Thursday evening for comment.
An estimated 10,000 students died in school collapses during the 7.9-magnitude earthquake that ravaged southwest China. In late May, parents from several schools began holding vigorous protests to denounce corruption and to call for investigations into the collapses. The protests spiraled into the biggest political challenge to the government in the aftermath of the earthquake.
So starting last week, local officials and police officers began clamping down on the protests. More than 100 parents who lost children in Juyuan protested in front of the courthouse in the nearby town of Dujiangyan on June 3, only to be surrounded by police officers. Several crying mothers clutching framed portraits of their dead children were hauled off to a neighboring building while journalists were barred from covering the event.
Police officers and soldiers also set up cordons around the most prominent collapsed schools and prevented journalists from approaching.
The night before the June 3 protest, officials in Juyuan persuaded six of seven parent leaders not to attend the rally, one mother said.
Chinese journalists said the central government had ordered Chinese news organizations to stop reporting on the school collapses.
By Dan Martin - Agence France Presse | via (uncensored) Yahoo! News
June 12, 2008
Police on Thursday kicked foreign journalists out of a city where the collapse of several schools in China's earthquake drew charges of corruption from parents of dead children.
The action, which came one month after the May 12 quake, followed a promise the day before by China that foreign reporters would be allowed unfettered access to report on the disaster aftermath.
The reporters' expulsions appeared to underline government unease over smouldering parent anger following the collapse of schools in the quake, which many parents blame on corruption that led to shoddy construction of buildings.
Two AFP staff members were among at least six foreign media representatives held by police when they tried to report at collapsed schools on Thursday.
Police grabbed the AFP staff and roughly threw them into a police van, damaging a camera, near the Juyuan Middle School where hundreds of students died in the quake.
They were later taken to government headquarters in Dujiangyan city and held there for more than an hour before being ordered out of the city.
"You cannot report anywhere in Dujiangyan. You must leave," a police officer said to the pair as they were being held.
Despite promises of free reporting, authorities have displayed increasing unease over the issue of the roughly 7,000 collapsed schools, many of which crumbled while adjacent buildings held firm.
Over the past week, the ruins of several such schools have been sealed off after increasingly vocal demands by parents for an investigation.
Parents said earlier this week they had received condolence letters and offers of "comfort money" from the Sichuan provincial government, but what they wanted was a full investigation and justice for their dead children.
"We refuse to accept the money until the government investigates what happened," a parent who gave only his surname, Liu, told AFP on Thursday.
The man's 13-year-old son, his only child, died at Juyuan Middle School. Parents say about 500 children died there.
Liu said parents had been offered amounts ranging from 20,000 to 30,000 yuan (2,900-4,300 dollars).
"Corruption was definitely involved in these cases," he said.
On Wednesday, a top national official denied to some of the same journalists who were expelled that China was tightening up on media coverage in the disaster zone.
By RADIO FREE ASIA
June 06, 2008
Parents across southwestern China are struggling to hold local officials accountable for allegedly shoddy construction standards in school buildings that collapsed during the May 12 earthquake.
Authorities in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan have prevented journalists from gaining access to a school that collapsed during the May 12 earthquake, amid widespread calls for investigations into the quality of school buildings.
The Sichuan provincial Public Security Bureau has ordered all media to stop covering Juyuan Middle School, where buildings collapsed during the quake, killing 280 students and teachers, a local official said.
"On June 2, the Sichuan provincial Public Security Bureau ordered all media to leave Juyuan Middle School alone," an official at the Dujiangyan Disaster Relief Information Center said.
She said police had cordoned off the area. "Some parents are very emotionally disturbed and they are not emotionally stable. So for the time being, authorities have to make some temporary rules," she said.
Police have cordoned off the school site and escorted two foreign journalists away from the school, grieving parents at the site said.
"The school site has been sealed off. No media are allowed," a woman surnamed Dong who lost a child in the collapse of the school said. "More than 100 police are present at the scene. Today, Australian journalists were expelled from the school site," she added.
Lawyers hard to find
She said local officials had pledged to give each victim's family 32,000 yuan (U.S. $4,600) in comfort money--higher than the standard 5,000 yuan compensation for other quake victims.
Dong said some parents had already received 12,000 yuan. "The government has pledged to take care of our health care and retirement, but it never said anything about seeking justice for our innocent children," she said.
She said the parents had hoped to band together and find a lawyer to sue the government for negligence, but so far no lawyer had been willing to take it on in the absence of an expert evaluation of the school's construction.
"No one dares to take the case," she said. "It all depends on how government defines the nature of the school buildings. If they say it was shoddy construction, then it was shoddy construction, but if they say it wasn't then it wasn't."
"If the court takes the case, it is like government suing itself. Therefore that's unlikely to happen. We don't want to withdraw our case by simply taking the 32,000 yuan from the government. We are hoping that a volunteer lawyer may take our case."
The story is being repeated in cities, towns, and villages around the quake-hit zone, where 10,000 schoolchildren are believed to have died in collapsed school buildings when the 7.9 magnitude tremor hit.
Call for investigation
In Shifang city, more than 200 parents called on the municipal government to publish a conclusion about safety standards in the collapsed school buildings.
"We want the government to tell us whether it was the earthquake or man-made factors that brought down the school buildings," grieving parent Wang Zhenfu said. "The township government told us that experts would come to investigate on June 5, but no one showed up either yesterday or today."
"They told us that the experts were very busy. They are just dragging out the issue as long as they can."
By Michael Bristow | BBC World News
June 05, 2008
Parents fear there will not be a proper investigation into why so many schools collapsed in last month's earthquake in China.
Many complain that although local authorities have promised to investigate, they are slow to give out information and worried that contractors and officials responsible for shoddily-built classrooms will not be held accountable.
Their concerns are voiced as China once again promises to investigate the schools issue, according to state-run news agency Xinhua.
Nearly 70,000 people died when the magnitude-8 earthquake struck south-western Sichuan Province on 12 May.
Children paid a heavy price in the disaster, although there is still no overall government figure of how many thousands of school pupils perished in the rubble.
Quality problems
Parents immediately demanded to know why so many school buildings collapsed, and the government initially responded to that call with officials promising within days of the quake to conduct a thorough investigation.
"If quality problems do exist in school buildings, we will deal with the persons responsible strictly," said Han Jin, an education ministry spokesman.
He added that parents who had lost children would get answers, Xinhua reported.
That message was repeated again on Wednesday when the State Council, China's Cabinet, said all collapsed school buildings would be appraised.
But parents whose children died when Juyuan Middle School fell down complain they have been told little about any investigation.
Zhao Deqin's twin 15-year-old daughters died when the school, near the city of Dujiangyan, collapsed killing at least 270 children.
She said: "Officials are not answering questions. They are just playing for time."
Another parent said he had visited the local government offices many times, but had been told only that the "relevant authorities" were investigating.
"The school fell down after 10 seconds. What else do you need to know," he said.
'Broken Lego'
There does appear to have been a problem with the Juyuan Middle School.
US structural engineer Kit Miyamoto inspected the school while he was in Sichuan checking other buildings for clients.
On a website posting, he concluded that the school's concrete floors collapsed because they were not supported properly.
"Just imagine building a Lego house, but using Lego blocks that have no protruding nubs to tie the Legos together," he wrote.
"This Lego house would not be able to resist lateral shaking. The school building is like these weak Lego houses."
An expert from China's Ministry of Construction also came to a similar conclusion, according to China's Southern Weekend newspaper.
He said there were problems with the school's location, structure and with the materials used to build it, it was reported.
But despite the complaints, Juyuan's local authority is saying little.
No-one was available when the BBC asked for an interview with a senior official.
And officials appear to be attempting to tone down public displays of grief and anger.
The school was sealed off earlier this week. Police guard the entrance, preventing people from going in.
By Associated Press | via ABC World News
June 03, 2008
DUJIANGYAN, China -- Chinese police dragged away more than 100 parents Tuesday while they were protesting the deaths of their children in poorly constructed schools that collapsed in last month's earthquake.
The parents, many holding pictures of their dead children, were pulled down the street away from a courthouse in Dujiangyan, a resort city northwest of the Sichuan provincial capital of Chengdu.
"Why?" some of them yelled. "Tell us something," they said as black-suited police wearing riot helmets yanked at them.
The parents had been kneeling in front of the courthouse yelling, "We want to sue." Their children attended a high school in Juyuan, near Dujiangyan, where 270 students died.
Police dragged an Associated Press reporter and two photographers who were covering the protest up the steps into the courthouse, trying to prevent them from seeing the demonstration.
"The parents were here to give their report to the court," said one police officer who refused to give his name.
Calls to local police were not answered Tuesday.
Asked why reporters were removed from the courthouse, an official from the foreign affairs office of the local government, Zao Ming, said "this is not a good place to do interviews. ... In a disaster like this, there will be a lot of opinions. The government will solve their problems."
There were also several Japanese reporters at the courthouse. One witness who did not want to be identified said police told the parents: "The Japanese are reporting bad things about you."
The protest happened while Chinese leader Li Changchun, the country's fifth-ranked ruler, was touring other parts of the city. The official Xinhua News Agency said Li was checking heritage sites damaged in the earthquake.
The government says the May 12 earthquake destroyed 7,000 classrooms. Many parents have accused contractors of cutting corners when building the classrooms, resulting in schools that could not withstand the 7.9-magnitude quake. Pictures of collapsed schools surrounded by buildings still standing have fueled anger.
More than 270 students died when one high school collapsed in Juyuan, near Dujiangyan. The Southern Metropolis News quoted a rescuer as saying that rubble from the school showed that no steel reinforcing bars had been used in construction, only iron wire.
The purpose of the website is to publish articles by journalists about a variety of topics concerning the People’s Republic of China. All journalists and the publications that publish their writings are clearly identified. All copyrights belong exclusively to the identified sources of these articles. | Powered by
Information + More