{"id":64175,"date":"2016-05-25T23:09:00","date_gmt":"2016-05-25T23:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1:10081\/?p=64175 "},"modified":"2016-05-25T23:09:00","modified_gmt":"2016-05-25T23:09:00","slug":"64175-revision-v1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/?p=64175","title":{"rendered":"Chinese Police Detain Protesting Sichuan Quake Parents"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">2016-05-24<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p><div>&nbsp;<\/div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mzzg.org\/UploadCenter\/ArticlePics\/2016\/20\/2016524e89474eb-5306-4ec5-95be-d4722308e4d2.jpeg\" alt=\"2016524e89474eb-5306-4ec5-95be-d4722308e4d2.jpeg (622&#215;407)\" \/><br \/><div>&nbsp;<\/div>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Grave of Sang Jun&#8217;s son Sang Xingpeng, who died in the 2008 earthquake in Mianzhu,  Sichuan Province, in an undated photo.<\/span><\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&nbsp;Photo courtesy of Sang Jun.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Police in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan detained and questioned a group of parents who lost children in a devastating earthquake eight years ago, as rights activist and author Tan Zuoren called on the ruling Chinese Communist Party to respect their rights.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Quake parent campaigner Sang Jun, who lost his son in the collapse of the Fuxin No. 2 Elementary School in worst-hit Mianzhu township, said he was detained and questioned by local police on suspicion of &#8220;disrupting public order&#8221; on Monday after he showed up at government offices with a group of fellow activists.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Sang, along with fellow campaigners Pi Kaijian, Chen Xuebing, and six others, were held for nearly 10 hours before being released, he told RFA on Tuesday.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;We were locked up in the police station from [Monday] evening to around 10.00 [Tuesday],&#8221; Pi told RFA. &#8220;We want the government to take care of [our children&#8217;s] living expenses, including if they go to college later.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;The government promised to take care of our children&#8217;s expenses until they reached 18, but now they just keep making excuses and won&#8217;t give us a proper response,&#8221; he said.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">The group are campaigning for the government to keep a promise made to them to pay living expenses for an &#8220;extra&#8221; post-quake child allowed under China&#8217;s family planning restrictions to couples who lost their only children on May 12, 2008.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">At least 5,000 children died under collapsed school buildings that anti-graft activists said were riddled with substandard building materials.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Shoved, detained<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Sang said the police took them away when they went to lodge complaints at the municipal government after a local court rejected their lawsuit.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;They shoved us and told us that we should go to the complaints office, but then &#8230; they detained us instead,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They told us we didn&#8217;t have the right profile to see government officials.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;Then they dragged us away,&#8221; he said. In a separate interview, Sang said: &#8220;The police attacked Chen Xuebing, hit him quite hard in the chest, and he&#8217;s still in pain.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Chen said the detentions came after the group tried to file a lawsuit last week at the local court against the property company that built the collapsed school buildings.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;We want to sue the developers, and we also want to pursue this issue of subsidies for our [second] children and their school fees,&#8221; Chen said. &#8220;School fees are so high nowadays that we can&#8217;t afford to pay them.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;Then there&#8217;s the cost of their uniform and various things like that,&#8221; he said.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Turned away by court<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Sang&#8217;s group applied last week to file a lawsuit at the Mianzhu People&#8217;s Court in one of the areas worst-hit by the earthquake<\/span><span style=\"font-family: \u5b8b\u4f53; font-size: 12pt;\">\uff0c<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">which left more than 80,000 people dead, thousands of them schoolchildren.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">But fellow campaigner and bereaved mother Deng Yongqiong, who lost her child in the collapse of the Wufu Elementary School, said the local court had rejected the case.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;We wanted to take it to the Intermediate People&#8217;s Court, or the [provincial-level] High People&#8217;s Court,&#8221; Deng said. &#8220;But now that the local court won&#8217;t take the case, it&#8217;ll never get that far.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;They just said that it was outside of their jurisdiction, and that we should go to the government instead,&#8221; she said.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;That&#8217;s why we went en masse to the government offices on Monday.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">An official who answered the phone at the Mianzhu municipal government offices on Tuesday declined to comment.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;I don&#8217;t know about this,&#8221; the official said.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8216;No justice&#8217;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Sichuan-based writer and rights activist Tan Zuoren, who was jailed for five years in May 2009 for &#8220;incitement to subvert state power&#8221; after he tried to probe the deaths of schoolchildren, called on the government to respect the parents&#8217; rights.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;These parents have had no justice, nor any protection of their rights,&#8221; Tan said. &#8220;They keep talking about the rule of law and due process, so we are using legal procedure to fight for justice.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;The right to file a lawsuit should be enjoyed by everybody, but the government insists on politicizing the whole issue,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They haven&#8217;t a leg to stand on.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><br \/><\/p>  <p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rfa.org\/english\/news\/china\/parents-05242016130621.html\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">For detail please visit here<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&lt;div&gt;Quake parent campaigner Sang Jun, who lost his son in the collapse of the Fuxin No. 2 Elementary School in worst-hit Mianzhu township, said he was detained and questioned by local police on suspicion of &quot;disrupting public order&quot; on Monday after he showed up at government offices with a group of fellow activists.&lt;\/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;\/div&gt;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ChinaHumanRights","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}