MCLC: self-immolation on Tiananmen Square

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: martin winter <dujuan99 at gmail.com>
Subject: self-immolation on Tiananmen Square
***********************************************************

There are two articles about this in the Daily Telegraph today. The
incident happened in October. I have posted the two articles below.

Martin

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Source: Daily Telegraph (11/16/11):
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peterfoster/100117856/tiananmen-square-se
lf-immolation-where-truth-is-swept-away-into-a-dustmans-cart/

Tiananmen Square self-immolation: where truth is swept away into a
dustman's cart
By Peter Foster

Even after nearly three years reporting in China, there is still something
amazing about the fact that a man can set himself on fire in Tiananmen
Square, in broad daylight, and then no one hears or says a word about it.

As it happens, the incident we report today that occurred on October 21st
was witnessed by a Telegraph reader who photographed the aftermath and ­
after hearing nothing more about it ­ decided it was right to alert the
wider world.

The picture shows several hundred people who must have also witnessed what
happened after Mr Wang, a 42-year-old man from Huanggang in Hubei, set
himself on fire in protest at a court judgment that, we must presume, he
felt was so unfair his only recourse was to self-immolate.

Such incidents, which are not completely uncommon in China, reflect the
frustration faced by ordinary people as they seek justice from a system of
courts and government that offers little recourse to the weak.

Mr Brown recalls that "everyone" was taking pictures of the incident, but
despite extensive online searches we cannot find any record of the
incident: not in the state media, commercial media or on in the freer
discussion forums of QQ or Sina Weibo (Chinese Twitter).

Perhaps some people did register the incident on their Weibo accounts but,
as is common, they were deleted by the "net nannies" who police online
discussion spaces with the same zeal that plain-clothes officers police
Tiananmen Square, snuffing out dissent at the first possible sign.

As the power and prevalence of Weibo grows, it has become increasingly
difficult for the authorities to suppress unwanted and unpalatable news,
as has been seen this year over protests in Dalian, with the "Barefoot
lawyer" Chen Guangcheng and over the Wenzhou rail disaster.

But as this incident shows, they also succeed, and in the nature of that
suppression, it is impossible to know the ratio of successes to failures.

Asking around some old correspondents here in China, no one can remember a
self-immolation incident in Tiananmen Square since 2001 when five people ­
allegedly Falun Gong practitioners ­ self-immolated.

We presume that such things are very rare, but after this expertly erased
incident, who can say? Perhaps these things happen far more regularly than
we know.

Credit to the Beijing Public Security Bureau for not lying about the
incident when presented with the photographic evidence, but it is the
preceding cover-up that begs the questions ­ that so fogs the slippery
relationship in China between the State, the people and the truth.

Ironically the Chinese government is in the midst of a major crackdown on
"false rumours" on the internet, and yet this kind of story, when it
emerges, is exactly why no one believes the government or officialdom in
China, and why rumours have such currency.

No doubt, without the photographic evidence, Mr Wang's self-immolation
would have been another subversive "rumour" to suppress. This is the
single biggest problem facing the Chinese state, the one from which all
its other difficulties flow: the absence of truth.

=======================================================

Source: Daily Telegraph (11/16/11):
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8893337/Chinese-man-se
ts-himself-on-fire-in-Tiananmen-Square.html

Chinese man sets himself on fire in Tiananmen Square
A Chinese man set himself on fire in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in what is
thought to be the first act of self-immolation at the scene of the 1989
pro-democracy protests for more than a decade.

The incident - which happened on October 21 - appeared nowhere in China's
censored state media, but was also witnessed by a Daily Telegraph reader
who photographed the aftermath as Chinese police rushed to douse the
flames using fire extinguishers.

"The man did it right in front of me. He stepped over the low railing in
front of the cycle-lane that runs past the picture of Chairman Mao. He was
only two or three metres away from me," recalled Alan Brown, a retired RAF
Engineer from Somerton, Somerset.

"He said something quickly and a policeman nearby was suddenly agitated,
but this chap whipped out his lighter and set himself on fire. Without
being melodramatic, he looked straight at me and set himself on fire.

"The policeman initially leapt back and then grabbed a fire extinguisher
from his motorbike and put the man out," added Mr Brown, who was
holidaying in China with his wife, Pamela.

Despite being witnessed by several hundred other Chinese bystanders there
is no record or mention of the incident either in China's heavily censored
state media, or on Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, where news
deemed sensitive or undesirable by the state often leaks out.

However after being shown the photograph, the incident was confirmed on
Wednesday by the press department of the Beijing Public Security Bureau
(PSB) which is responsible for monitoring and maintaining social order in
China.

"At around 11 o'clock on Oct. 21, 2011, [a man surnamed] Wang walked to
the spot near Jinshui bridge, and suddenly set his clothes on fire. The
policemen at the scene extinguished the fire within ten seconds and sent
the man to hospital for treatment," said a faxed statement.

"He has now pulled through. After investigation, Wang (male, 42, resident
of Huanggang city, Hubei province) took the extreme action because of
discontent over the outcome of a civil litigation in a local court."

The self-immolation of Mr Wang would appear to be the first known incident
since January 23 2001 when five people, including a 12-year-old girl, set
themselves on fire allegedly in protest at the violent suppression of the
Falun Gong spiritual movement.

Two died, including the young girl, and three were left severely
disfigured in the incident which remains controversial to this day after
the Falun Gong leadership accused the Chinese government of staging the
incident to justify its persecution of the movement's members.

While by no means common in China, self-immolation incidents are reported
at least once or twice a year, often involving victims of unjust court
rulings, land grabs, property disputes with local government or extreme
examples of corruption.

Chinese authorities in Tibet have also been dealing with a wave of
self-immolations this year, with 11 monks and nuns setting themselves on
fire in protest against Chinese rule in the Tibetan region since March.

However, Tiananmen Square, which 22 years after the 1989 killings remains
the most politically sensitive location in China, is very heavily policed,
thronging with plain clothes officers who are poised to wrap up any
attempt at protest at a second's notice.

Mr Brown, 59, said he had been astonished by the speed at which the
security forces had stepped in to douse the flames and then erase any
trace of the incident.

"There were lots of people taking pictures at the time, so I was surprised
not to hear anything about on the news afterwards, so I thought that it
should at least come to light.

"After it happened, the street cleaners were working almost straight away.

If anyone had arrived five or ten minutes later they would have seen
nothing. By the time we reached the balcony overlooking the square, there
was no sign of what had happened. Everything had gone."