APRIL 4, 2015
BEIJING — A group of taxi drivers drank from bottles of pesticide in central Beijing on Saturday to protest what they said was poor treatment by their taxi companies, state and social media outlets reported.
At least 10 men, some of them frothing from the mouth, fell to the ground on a busy sidewalk at the Wangfujing shopping center about 11 a.m. after drinking the pesticide, according to the Beijing police force’s official microblog account. The men were rushed to nearby hospitals and all survived, the police said.
Videos of the protest quickly spread on Chinese social media sites, showing the men splayed on the ground and large crowds staring at them from behind police cordons.
According to The South China Morning Post, the men were all from a city in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang and tried to kill themselves to protest the way taxi companies renewed their vehicle leases.
Drinking pesticide is a common way to commit suicide in China, particularly in rural areas.
People with grievances in China have long sought to petition the central government in Beijing. But the ruling Communist Party presses local officials to thwart those seeking redress. Petitioners are often detained for protesting and trying to file lawsuits. Many are beaten, threatened and sometimes sent away to mental hospitals to prevent them from airing their grievances in the capital.
Some desperate protesters attempt suicide in public to raise awareness to their cause. Last year, a family of five tried to kill themselves by drinking pesticide outside the offices of a newspaper in Beijing in a protest against local officials who took their land and demolished their homes.
