{"id":74384,"date":"2017-06-16T17:29:00","date_gmt":"2017-06-16T17:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1:10081\/?p=74384 "},"modified":"2017-06-16T17:29:00","modified_gmt":"2017-06-16T17:29:00","slug":"74384-revision-v1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/?p=74384","title":{"rendered":"Police Warn Off Journalists After Chinese Kindergarten Bombing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">2017-06-16<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p><div>&nbsp;<\/div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mzzg.org\/UploadCenter\/ArticlePics\/2017\/24\/2017616image(7).jpg\" alt=\"2017616image(7).jpg (622&#215;350)\" \/><br \/><div>&nbsp;<\/div>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Bodies are shown lying in the street after a bombing at a kindergarten in Jiangsu, China, June 15, 2017.<\/span><\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Photo sent by an RFA listener<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Authorities in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu turned away journalists on Friday after a man set off a homemade bomb, leaving eight dead and dozens injured, at the gates of a kindergarten during school pick-up time the day before.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">The blast rocked the local neighborhood at 4:48 p.m. local time as family members were waiting to pick up their children, killing two people at the scene. Six more died of their injuries in hospital, the local authorities said in statement.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Journalists near the scene of the blast on Friday told RFA they had been told by officials to leave the area, which had been cordoned off by police.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Video of the altercation seen by RFA showed a journalist being shoved by a group of plainclothes police officers.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Residents of Jiangsu&#8217;s Xuzhou city described hearing a massive bang on Thursday and seeing the aftermath of the blast outside the kindergarten, state media reported, as photos circulated on social media showing several bodies lying in a street.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Police said the bomber, a 22-year-old man surnamed Xu, had scrawled death-related phrases on the walls of his rented apartment near the school. He was killed in the blast, state media reported.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">The bomber had &#8220;lost his place&#8221; at an unnamed college owing to a &#8220;neurological condition,&#8221; Xinhua news agency reported on Friday.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Police found homemade explosives in his apartment, and the Chinese characters for &#8220;Death,&#8221; &#8220;Die,&#8221; and &#8220;Destroy&#8221; daubed on the walls, the report said.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Conflicting accounts<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Friday&#8217;s official account was at odds with initial statements put out by local government, a Xuzhou resident told RFA.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Local resident Liu Jianguo said local authorities had initially issued statements saying that the blast was caused by exploding gas cylinders at street food stalls near the kindergarten.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-family: \u5b8b\u4f53; font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Both the [county] government propaganda department and the municipal government propaganda departments issued statements,&#8221; Liu said. &#8220;They said it was probably from gas cylinders at a food stall near the school gates, and that everyone had been taken to hospital for treatment.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">An official who answered the phone at the Feng county police department said the authorities are still evacuating people from the area around the blast.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-family: \u5b8b\u4f53; font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">We still don&#8217;t yet know [many details]. Investigations are ongoing. Staff at the hospital are still working to save people, and police are pro-actively evacuating residents.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Online Chinese news service Frontline News named the suspect as Xu Taoran, a native of Xuzhou&#8217;s Quanshan district.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Xu had been scheduled to attend his graduation ceremony on Thursday at a university in the city, and that his father had access to explosives as part of his business.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">It said Xu rented a basement apartment in the Fengyuan residential compound and had &#8220;thrown a black backpack&#8221; near the kindergarten gates on the day of the explosion.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">RFA was unable to confirm any of the claims in the report.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">An official who answered the phone at the Feng county government offices on Friday said local leaders were at the scene of the blast, but further details were unavailable.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-family: \u5b8b\u4f53; font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Please can you call the propaganda department,&#8221; the official said. Calls to the propaganda department rang unanswered during office hours on Friday, however.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Xinhua said a team of top doctors had been ordered to Xuzhou to assist local medical teams with 65 injured people, some of whom were in critical condition.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><br \/><\/p>  <p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rfa.org\/english\/news\/china\/warn-06162017111744.html\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">For detail please visit here<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&lt;div&gt;The blast rocked the local neighborhood at 4:48 p.m. local time as family members were waiting to pick up their children, killing two people at the scene. Six more died of their injuries in hospital, the local authorities said in statement.&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-74384","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\/74384","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=74384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74384\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=74384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=74384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=74384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}