China returns to normal - Arrests grieving parents

interesting give more info please

THE AP IS REPORTING THE FOLLOWING:

The students' deaths have become the focus for Chinese, both inside and outside the quake zone, fueling accusations about corruption in school construction. The brewing public anger has become a political challenge and threatens to turn popular sentiment against the authoritarian government as it copes with aiding millions displaced by the disaster.

Aggrieved parents and even rescuers have pointed to steel rods in broken concrete slabs that were thinner than a ball point pen among the 7,000 classrooms that were destroyed.

"Oh, my child!" one woman wailed as officers took the arms of the parents gathered outside the courthouse in this resort town. "Tell us something!" other parents shouted as they were led away. Their children had died in the Juyuan Middle School.

Journalists were then dragged up the courthouse steps by police — "For your safety!" they shouted. The journalists included an Associated Press reporter and two photographers who were held inside and questioned for a half-hour before being let go, after the protesters had been moved away.

The parents were forced along the sidewalk and out of sight. Surrounded by police at a side entrance to the courthouse, they tried to present what some described as a lawsuit, saying they had no other option because local officials weren't responding.

The papers were refused, the parents said. Calls to local police were not answered.

"This wasn't a riot!" Zao Ming, an official from the foreign affairs office of the local government, said after the protest. "These people were just disrupting society. ... The government will solve their problems."

The government has taken some steps to try to help grieving parents. On Tuesday, Beijing began giving compensation to some families whose children were killed — about $144 per year to each parent who lost an only child. The Ministry of Civil Affairs also announced that parents who had lost their only child had first priority in adopting children orphaned by the disaster.

Meanwhile, the death toll from the quake rose Tuesday to 69,107 and relief efforts continued in the sprawling disaster zone. Thousands of soldiers searched for a military helicopter that crashed Saturday near the epicenter, with 14 injured quake victims and a crew of five aboard.

Authorities also monitored the climbing water levels in a huge lake formed when a quake-triggered landslide blocked a river, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.

Suspicions between the government and grieving parents have grown since the quake. Plainclothes police roamed the grounds of the collapsed Xinjian — or New Construction — Elementary School in Dujiangyan during a memorial for International Children's Day on June 1, a parent said.

They whispered into parents' ears, "Be careful what you say among the foreign media," said Yang, a father at the event who only gave his surname.

Parents at the school said they scuffled with police Tuesday, after the authorities tried to block reporters from doing interviews.

"The police twisted the hands of some of the parents. It's too much!" said Chen Bijun, who lost her 12-year-old son in the collapse.

Parents arriving at the site Tuesday found that authorities had removed their symbols of mourning and protest, replacing them with a single banner that said "Mourn the students who met grief." The parents immediately tore it down.

Both incidents happened while Chinese leader Li Changchun, the country's fifth-ranked official, was touring other parts of the city, visiting survivors and relief workers, Xinhua said.

This could be the catalyst to mobilize the people against the Party. We might be witnessing history in the making here.

Or it could be Tienanmen Square, part II

Where does it say that the parents were arrested?

China is constantly violating human rights. When you just go ahead and use whatever term you feel like using, when that's not what's happened precisely, it undercuts the real case against the Chinese government. So say "removed" or "detained" if that's what happened. Or, if you don't know, then say that. But, based on this article, you can't really say they were "arrested."

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1811455,00.html

Time magazine says so. take a look at their headline

I heard this on the radio today. though the same thing.

It's sad how China is so advanced in their technology, economy and industry, but fails miserably when it comes to something as simple as human rights.

True compassion is nowhere to be found in the Chinese government. Communism doesn't allow for that.

Let's keep away from silly labelist generalizations huntre. Technically speaking, they're not even communist.

The real crime here is the corruption. If these schools had been built right, none of this would have happened. It's not the first time there's been school contruction related incidents either.

The biggest mistake the Chinese government is making right now is that is holding the people in contempt rather than the finding or scapegoating people that were responsible.

dianaleigh, you took the words right out of my mouth.

I find it so strange that a country can be sooo far ahead in terms of technology, yet still seeming to be almost medieval in their human rights approach.

on the times article it say
It is unclear as yet whether they have been detained overnight or released, or whether Guo Danqing was among those arrested. Several parents told TIME last Saturday that they were considering bringing a lawsuit against the provincial government, hoping to pressure it into a thorough investigation of whether shoddy construction brought down the Juyuan Middle School and many others like it throughout Sichuan province, when the quake hit. According to wire reports, some parents shouted that they wanted to sue even as they were dragged away. All this came just a couple of days before one of China's unmarked days of mourning, the anniversary of the crackdown on the Tiananmen Square demonstrations on June 4, 1989.

also it says
The provincial government in Chengdu on Tuesday began distributing payments to parents who lost their only child in the quake. The initial payment was the equivalent of $144 per family per year for as long as the parents are alive. Aid workers today told TIME that parents in Mianzhu, a devastated city about 90 kilometers northeast of Chengdu, learned about the payment on Saturday and marched to a local government office to complain about what a pittance it was. Police dispersed them. On Tuesday, government officials stressed that the $144 payment is only a start — that further funds will be disbursed after the government completes a region-wide investigation as to why so many school buildings collapsed.

you gotta give the government time to response
the Chinese government is not trying to cover this up and they are trying to solve these problems

please stop prying for a Tienanmen Square II its two completely different situations and its a completely different time

and if that happen it would be good for the rest of the world

what about Katrina
the us government certainly did do any better at the face of major disaster

as things goes there will i predict that there will be execution for those responsible for those who cut material when build those school

The more I read, the more disgusted I become with their government.

There are too many people on this website that find sketchy articles on subjects which they no little to nothing about.

As an American working in Shanghai, I can't say that I know what the situation is like in Sichuan, but certainly there is nothing even close to a "Tiananmen 2". In fact, the disaster has rallied the Chinese people to support their government more than the olympics.

How about we fix our own human rights problems first like... the patriot act, secret prisons and torture, the iraq war. Seriously, we are too lazy to fix those problems, so we just bitch and moan about China.

This place is in many ways freer than America!

Grieving is against the law in China? That's appalling. Boycott the Olympic's and Walmart.

There's nothing to see here-now move along-or you'll end up like your dead child.

I find it really absurd that a free country such as the USA willingly borrows trillions of dollars from a country such as China to fund our war in Iraq. Supposedly we are trying to install democracy among the Iraqis with money we borrow from authoritarian China. It seems the whole world (and the Bush Administration) is completely bassackwards.

No way! If your kid died you get an extra 144 dollars a year! How lucky are those parents.....dot dot dot.... dot dot dot dot dot.......