The last time I saw Lu Banglie (
I had only met him that day. He was a very soft-spoken man. One of those skinny guys who looks like he may start tearing at any moment. Born as a peasant in Baoyuesi village of Bailizhou town in Zhijiang City, Hubei Province, he was a people's representative and had been in the village of Taishi since the start of a democratic movement in the area.
That movement, deeply unpopular with the local authorities, has widely become considered a weather vane for China's tentative steps toward a more representative society. It has led to beatings and mass arrests among its population as well as for observers who venture into its environs.
Lu was at the forefront of this maelstrom. And on Sunday this is where the problem lay. We arrived on the outskirts of Taishi, just as the dirt roads start. There were 30 to 50 men -- angry, inebriated, bored men. Most looked like thugs. Some wore military camouflage uniform. Some wore blue uniforms with badges on the shoulders and one guy had a greyish-mauve uniform with a walkie-talkie. Our taxi driver, who we had hired randomly in a neighboring village, was called out by the thugs. They screamed at him: "What the fuck are you doing here?"
He knew nothing. He came back in and screamed at us.
"Fuck all of you, look now you've gotten me into trouble," he said.
We told him to reverse but by that time it was already too late, the car was encircled.
"Don't go out!" I screamed, telling everyone to lock their doors. I called a colleague on my mobile, and asked him to stay on the phone with me.
The men outside shouted among themselves and those in uniform suddenly left. Those remaining started pushing on the car, screaming at us to get out. They pointed flashlights at us, and when the light hit Lu's face, it was as if a bomb had gone off. They completely lost it. They pulled him out and bashed him to the ground, kicked him, pulverized him, stomped on his head over and over again.
The beating was loud, like the crack of a wooden board, and he was unconscious within 30 seconds.
They continued for 10 minutes. The body of this skinny little man turned to putty between the kicking legs of the rancorous men. This was not about teaching a man a lesson, about scaring me, about preventing access to the village; this was about vengeance -- retribution for teaching villagers their legal rights, for agitating, for daring to hide.
They slowed down but never stopped. He lay there -- his eye out of its socket, his tongue cut, a stream of blood dropping from his mouth, his body limp, twisted. The ligaments in his neck were broken, so his head lay sideways as if connected to the rest of his body by a rubber band.
We were probably in the car another five to eight minutes. The front windows were open and various men were reaching in to unlock my door. I held my hand tight to the lock. They punched me, twisted my wrist, tried everything possible with a quick grab to get me out. But I wouldn't let go, and I defended myself while watching Lu get murdered through the window.
Eventually, my translator got out. I followed. They opened my pen, search my pockets, underwear, socks, asked my translator if his watch could record anything. They asked what we were doing in Taishi. They found my Chinese press pass.
RSS