Relatives of a man shot dead by the police in China said he was murdered after resisting a beating from officers, a lawyer said yesterday after a media uproar over his death.
Xu Chunhe (徐春和), 54, was killed in the northern city of Qingan earlier this month, highlighting more widespread arming of Chinese police officers in the wake of several train station attacks.
The Police prevented Xu — who had been in a long term dispute with local officials over benefit payments — from boarding a train before beating him with batons and shooting him, family lawyer Xie Yanyi said.
“The mistake was completely on the police’s side... it is a suspected case of intentional homicide,” Xie said, adding: “We have a responsibility to pursue criminal prosecution.”
Xu had previously attempted to seek higher-level intervention in his dispute, he added.
‘INTERCEPTORS’
Local officials in China often employ staff known as “interceptors” to forcibly prevent people from traveling to lodge complaints with more senior authorities.
The practice — often carried out without any legal basis — has come in for increasing criticism and several Chinese media outlets speculated that the police had used excessive force against Xu.
EXCESSIVE FORCE
According to Xinhua news agency, authorities said the dead man had assaulted police officers, trying to grab an officer’s gun and truncheon, and that he posed an obvious threat to public security.
However, in an unusually outspoken commentary, Xinhua called on local authorities to release video footage of Xu’s death.
Xie said that the police had detained Xu in the train station waiting room, tying him to a railing before beating him. Xu was shot after “resisting,” he cited witnesses as saying.
The police sent Xu’s mother to a nursing home following the shooting as a “kind of soft arrest to prevent her from contacting the outside world,” Xie added.
The provincial railway police in Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang, declined to comment.
Regular police officers in major Chinese cities began patrolling with guns for the first time last year in response to a deadly mass knifing blamed on separatists from the northwestern region of Xinjiang.
Ten cheetah cubs held in captivity since birth and destined for international wildlife trade markets have been rescued in Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia. They were all in stable condition despite all of them having been undernourished and limping due to being tied in captivity for months, said Laurie Marker, founder of the Cheetah Conservation Fund, which is caring for the cubs. One eight-month-old cub was unable to walk after been tied up for six months, while a five-month-old was “very malnourished [a bag of bones], with sores all over her body and full of botfly maggots which are under the
BRUSHED OFF: An ambassador to Australia previously said that Beijing does not see a reason to apologize for its naval exercises and military maneuvers in international areas China set off alarm bells in New Zealand when it dispatched powerful warships on unprecedented missions in the South Pacific without explanation, military documents showed. Beijing has spent years expanding its reach in the southern Pacific Ocean, courting island nations with new hospitals, freshly paved roads and generous offers of climate aid. However, these diplomatic efforts have increasingly been accompanied by more overt displays of military power. Three Chinese warships sailed the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand in February, the first time such a task group had been sighted in those waters. “We have never seen vessels with this capability
A Japanese city would urge all smartphone users to limit screen time to two hours a day outside work or school under a proposed ordinance that includes no penalties. The limit — which would be recommended for all residents in Toyoake City — would not be binding and there would be no penalties incurred for higher usage, the draft ordinance showed. The proposal aims “to prevent excessive use of devices causing physical and mental health issues... including sleep problems,” Mayor Masafumi Koki said yesterday. The draft urges elementary-school students to avoid smartphones after 9pm, and junior-high students and older are advised not
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) attended a grand ceremony in Lhasa yesterday during a rare visit to Tibet, where he urged “ethnic unity and religious harmony” in a region where China is accused of human rights abuses. The vast high-altitude area on the country’s western edge, established as an autonomous region in 1965 — six years after the 14th Dalai Lama fled into exile — was once a hotbed for protest against Chinese Communist Party rule. Rights groups accuse Beijing’s leaders of suppressing Tibetan culture and imposing massive surveillance, although authorities claim their policies have fostered stability and rapid economic development in