Chinese Blogger Beaten To Death By Government Officials

Jeez. China is such an affront to human rights. And blogging seems to be a job hazard in such areas of the world.

Kudos to blogger, they’re like the firemen of this age.

China is in for some big changes over the coming decades, you can’t keep information about freedom from getting out while at the same time, entering into a global economy.

Jon
http://buzvia.com - Share Influence

I know a way bloggers can hit back at china. A blogger boycott of the olympics should be organized. All bloggers should not write anything about the olympics and instead spend the time reporting on their human rights abuses.

Buzvia is such a stupid idea.

So what they’re really saying is that the officials didn’t cover up this beating well enough, let it get out to international media, and therefore should be punished.

@hallson because unfortunately it hurts the athletes, not the corporate sponsors or the gov’t who already has the money etc.

I for one welcome our Chinese communist media-censoring by any means necessary overloads… NOT!!!

It’s really a human-made tragedy. But I have no idea the brave man was a blogger, please check the source how it was reported and point to his blog address.

Bad if true.

No. The poor man is not a blogger. He is a manager of a respectable company.

The killer are so-called “city law protector” (not police)

Well, it is right. This man is not a blogger. He is a GM of a local company. The local government is trying to settle this case by offering a free education fund for his children. Is that going to help?
I don’t think so!

It’s true that the man was killed for photographing with his mobile phone.

I can only go on what press reports are saying (CNN’s headline was ” China blogger beaten to death”). At least half are calling him a blogger according to a quick look on Google news, and a significant number of outlets are referring to him as a “citizen journalist.” If he’s not a blogger per se so be it, but they guy still got beaten up for taking video on his mobile phone, and no matter what he was it’s still bloody awful.

Since this is how China treats its own citizens I think we know how China will treat the rest of us in the years ahead.

It’s not “China” per se, it’s the municipal inspector force. In America we have security guards tasing people for asking questions during a political speech but that’s not “America”.

On second thought, maybe that is America.

&ltsadmusic&gtChina.. oh China… We see the tears on your face…&lt/sadmusic&gt

<sadmusic>China.. oh China… We see the tears on your face…</sadmusic>

This is bad. I’m glad I don’t blog from China.

Developed countries will no doubt turn a blind eye to these atrocities.

Anybody remembers Amadou Diallo or Rodney King? Why are we always pointing fingers at the others?

Just because this happened in China doesn’t mean it’s a government sanctioned action. “Municipal Inspectors” are security guards hired by local government to maintain order, much like security guards hired by a local city hall in the US.

Yea it’s a tragedy and it should have never happened. But this is not human rights violation.

Can’t wait for the Olympics. China is a beautiful place.

This post simply does not read the fact in a neutral way.

The event has nothing to do with the violation of human rights or blogger although it’s a tragedy.

Thank you George.

I was watching this thread, just wondering if anyone had even a remote inkling of the facts. You have restored my faith in the internet friend.

On another note, I wonder how we might encourage data gathering and critical thinking here more? This crowd is not like Digg. Everyone here is worth saving from the abyss of emotion and political and religious fundamentalism that seems to be swallowing whole our capacity for thought.

China has so many things wrong with it, that it is not necessary to complain when they do something right. ie - hold ‘Blackwater’ style mercenaries accountable. For that matter, so do we. The thing is that these negatives need to be put in perspective. Everyone rails against the US and China polluting everything. Even though a look at the data tells us that while the US produces 5x more than China per capita, Australia produces 11x more than China per capita. Question from a critical thinker . . . How many protests against Australia’s profligate behavior have any of those who rail against the US and China been to? People like to get up in arms about the Three Gorges Dam. All the while these armchair environmentalist are blissfully unaware of the number of Damming projects in the lesser asian nations. Take a gander at what is going on along the Mekong for instance.

Get the data.

Make your own decisions.

Turn off the TV.

As a Chinese myself, every time I read this kind of news, I feel sad and angry, yet can do nothing to help. This is just one of the “3Ps” I summarized about the negative side of China, Population, Pollution & Politics. I just hope pressure from both in and outside China on the Communist government will change the OmniParty a bit, just a little bit.

@hallson I can’t agree more with your idea.

slowly but surely, China will go towards the universal Human rights, and Internet and connectivity plays a huge role in people fighting for their individual freedom.

Internet will become a basis of communication of ideas, radical ,threatening and ultimately that any government will hardly be ever able to control !

Ujw
exoticbuddha.com

Tough time to be a blogger in China.

However the authorities there should understand that they cannot, and I mean CANNOT censor the Internet. You can kill ‘em, but you cannot silence ‘em.

just like Meeno, i’m also a chinese,sad and angry at hearing the news. china still has a long way to go in both economy and civilization. well this brutal incident deserves critics from all races of people.
however, it may not be good or fair to lead to any political attack on china. instead, it should lead to personal sorrow and self-blame for all human beings. when looked in retrospect, slaughter and blood was the sacrifice of modern and democratic civilization.all leading countries have also a bloody past. for being modern, we’ve lost too much! the current china is just a mirror of the past of all human beings. So let us hope things will getting better. as a chinese, i do hope things will getting better!

Oh what a horrible horrible violation of human rights.

to Phillip how can you compare Australia’s pollution with China or the US for that matter.
Australia hasn’t overpopulated its country like the Chinese have.
Australia has 2.6 people per sq km & a total population of approx 20million.
China has approx 135 people per sq km & a total population of approx 1.3 billion.
For arguments sake say China emmits 1 tonne of Co2 per person.
Australia you say is 11 x that at say 11 tonnes per person
Well, we all know who is really causing the most damage to the planet & the environment - China 1.3 billions tonnes. Aussie 220 million tonnes. I think you will find Australia becomes carbon neutral way before China does & they don’t have smog & pollution problems in most of their cities like China does. Your argument could apply to most of the nations in the developed world if you compared them against 3rd world countries say in Africa. Then of course you have all the Chinese people who have immigrated to other countries. Chinese people on this planet use up way more resources than Australians!
Even the Chinese wiki is different to every other country in that you can’t get simple facts like population, gdp, people per sq km etc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia
Do the government update their wiki as well? China is a developing country, their output per of Co2 will be going up per person - especially once the Olympics have finished!

Simply human wrong, not human rights..

Human right? The answer is not clear. Some one argues that it’s only a mistake. That’s true, only partially. This kind of things happened frequently in recent years. And I think mistake could not explain all.

We all live in an imperfect world…

This is extremely bad…

Being beaten to death: a random mistake.

Being beaten because of photographing conflicts between “Municipal Guards” and peasants: not a mistake.

I know that these incidents happen each year in the country. But I am sure this kind of things will be fewer and fewer.
The good thing is Chinese Central Government wants to do something to improve human rights. The bad thing is the change won’t be occur in one day. China is as large as US, but not that balanced developed, so some places and some people are still incivilized.
The other reason is that Chinese Central Government and Chinese local government are not always accordant, which makes Chinese human rights may not be ensured in some places sometimes.
Democracy is a way to solve these problems. and may also Multi-Party policy come. But now, Chinese people should still count on Communist Party, at least, the party is not monster now.

i come from chinese.Wei is not a blogger . He is a company’s general manager, he was only passing through it.

Blogger or not, it doesn’t matter.

And this is not the first time here, those government-hired gangsters (they got a new name “municipal inspectors”?, huh) beaten innocent people to death.

Is it not a human rights problem? Maybe it even worse, it is a humanity-lost problem, those bastards is just losing their humanity and becoming wild animals.

“Everyone rails against the US and China polluting everything.”

These two super powers do have a tremendous influence globally.

Duncan, your are right this time.

In fact,we have been numb for it ,even if it’s much worse,The Goverment drop too many their dignity, they are vermin.

So,this news can’t be the headline in our country(China) as we known,it’s so woefully.

I’m not going to state my position one way or the other on this, but I read TechCrunch for tech and startup news and opinion, not politics. There are so many better sources out there for political comment that I don’t see why TC needs to wade in with this inept opining. It was exactly the same when the Australian internet censorship story came up in the New Year silly season. Stick to what you’re good at, TC!

Writers across the world just have some inborn tendency to troll against China… (which might not be a bad thing)…

this case is isolated case. although it gets people’s blood boiled, it is a rare and extreme case and shouldn’t been taken into consideration when analyzing the problem and forming opinions on China today. It is the freedom of speech the issue that has been ignored everyday and deserve more attention and discussion.

@Andy: But this is exactly the kind of crap reporting that Duncan excels at. Talk about fact-checking, he even got the headline wrong!

Freedom of speech requires political reform, which won’t happen anytime soon.. particularly unlikely for the next 10-20 years.

Hey wake up. We have sold USA to China….wake up

I was in china last year. they have the perfect solution for people who commit crimes. they walk them through town, make them kneel down and shoot them in the head. its called justice

Geez, it’s like Farenheit 451 with the fireman being the blogger that was beaten to death - China needs to allow freedom of speech soon, for these bloggers and the people of China are getting sick of actions such as this.

If China wants to grow and become stronger, they must allow dissent, for strength comes in numbers and intellectual freedom.

that’s preposterous!

wonder how we could send some of the gawker staff to china, saying! zomg

China needs a lot of things first before “free speech” and “democracy.”

China needs a viable system system of sustaining it’s growing population first. Such as higher paying jobs, a better health care system, a better educational system, etc.

There’s this HUGE divide growing between the “middle class” vs the rural, poor. China needs to do something about this first.

It’s amazing - all the horrible stuff that China does gets virtually no press coverage (save for this instance). Yet the US gets excoriated because we liberate 50 million people from tyrannical regimes…and those people decide to take the opportunity to start killing each other.

Nice double standard! Or maybe no standard!

I don’t know Don… you’re comparing the random killing of one Chinese to the forced invasion of another sovereign state that resulted in the death of over 500k civilians?

Stuff like this happens in the US as well. Remember Rodney King? Or the UF kid that got tasered at the John Kerry speech? These are the result of bad decisions made by a small group of people.

For all for those commenting that China is in for changes, they might be for the worse. We are heavily investing in their infrastructure as is Japan and even South Korea and Australia and Europe. As we pour billions into their nation they are building 5 submarines that can launch nukes on any American city. They are set to launch in 2009 at latest. Until then only our west coast is vulnerable to attack if the crazy commies that are still in charge decide on confronting the U.S. Then late this year at least 2 will be launched and armed with SLBM ( Submarine launched ballistic missiles).
Can anyone here think two steps ahead and see what is about to happen? Every economic deal China makes, they have a section that states that Taiwan is part of China and the nation they are making the deal ( from Sudan, Malaysia, Iran, Pakistan, Mongolia, Vietnam etc) all agree.
If you think the atrocities they are committing now are bad on this blogger, and the thousands per year that they kill for their religion or for political beliefs, wait another year.
in 2009 China will be basically invulnerable from American attack in any way.
There isn’t any American President that is willing to lose even one city for Taiwan. Once Taiwan falls, they have total access to the Pacific and their ’string of pearls’ doctrine will be in effect. They many naval bases going up in Pakistan, Myanmar ( Burma) and more.
So we here at TechCrunch can be sad for this one blogger. I am more sad for the coming hundreds of thousands or even millions that will be either enslaved or dead. This isn’t a pretty picture like some here think.

Michael, you’re saying China is building a military to… invade the US? I can’t conceive how or why this could happen…

The only way for China to improve its human rights and reform politically is if economic progress continues. A country of people with things to live for is much less likely to go kamikaze than a country of people with nothing to live for.

Whenever China news breaks, a trusted resource I always turn to for more in depth coverage than mainstream media would be Global Voices Online. John Kennedy always scratches beneath the surface and often provides some really great translated insight from the Chinese chat rooms and blogs.

Also, it’s important to note that “municipal authorities” in China who often abuse their local power are often no more than a bunch of thugs who overstep the boundaries. The beating of this man was not an instinct sanctioned by the Chinese government to censor the passer by to videotape it. It appears it was an attempt by these local “municipal authorities” to ensure they weren’t exposed for their corrupt ways.

I just want to point out that what is often portrayed by generic coverage by CNN and reposted on blogs like TechCrunch often portray a level of understanding that translates to “evil Chinese government cracks down on bloggers in China” — without a better understanding of what sparked the situation to begin with and what the outrage in China internet is about. The “municipal authorities” did not know this man was a blogger when they beat him to death. They were trying to keep from getting in trouble themselves for having their actions taped and exposed. This issue is more about growing outrage of corruption in China than it is about bloggers getting singled out and silenced.

So if anyone is interested, whenever China news breaks into mainstream media, you may want to bookmark Global Voices Online or Danwei.org for a more insider view to gain a better understanding.

Here’s John Kennedy’s coverage of it:
http://www.globalvoicesonline......%94by-who/

George, no I’m not saying that they are building their strategic resources and military to confront the US. What I’m saying is they are doing so to indeed invade and take Taiwan as we will be unwilling to sacrifice our kids in a major war with a major power that has virtually the entire world on their side since they have them all agree that Taiwan is part of China. Therefore logically when they do move (they are waiting until they know we will not do anything) , we will not be risking American cities over Taiwan. From there it is going to get very stressful on the international level.

I agree with you that economic progress is a good thing. The only problem is they are not opening up as we had hoped. The old theory was as we invested, they would reform. That isn’t taking place and in fact their military spending is going completely underground now. We are almost clueless but with our technology we know they are building 5 Subs that can launch nukes. We know they will be done later this year and in 2009. From there they are a real threat to more than just our west coast. That is what is needed for them to then start the expected rampage.
Just ask yourself would any American President risk war? Especially one ( like Hillary) that has received millions from China via illegal go betweens - all of which Hillary and the Democrats made sure will not be disclosed until after the election. Isn’t that convenient? China seems to have all bases covered.

Taiwan is of course part of China, there isn’t any slightest doubt about it!

This is very unfortunate and totally ridiculous.. China has a track of this kind of inhuman behavior.. Being strict and disciplined is one thing and being inhuman and brutal is another..

WOW. Duncan did you just swipe that photo from AP/CNN? I suppose the brave photographer who took that doesn’t deserve to be paid for it. Is that how you did things at Business 2.0? No wonder you and your colleagues killed that magazine.

in 2009 China will be basically invulnerable from American attack in any way.

Yeah, those bases in Japan, Korea, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and the Phillipines would be no help. And I’m sure Russia would love a destabilized Asia.

Not. Stop fear mongering. China is much less likely to attack outsiders now than 30 years ago. Yeah, they have problems, but economic entanglement decreases the likelihood of violence. Compare them to North Korea.

Chinese business buy off their politicians too. They don’t war with the US any more than Michael Dell does. Hell, a lot of the factories in China are owned by Taiwanese companies. You think either side wants a war?

In fact, nothing to do with bloggers. As reported by Chinese media, the dead was a manager of a construction company but no one said he was a blogger. I’m sorry for the death, though.

In a way, this is a good thing. (Honestly sorry for the poor blogger) China, with the upcoming olympics, is attempting to show the world a different face than that of Tiananmen Square. China has the potential to return to her origins as a country concerned with the human spirit. We shall see.

D

through out the entire chinese/china civilization, tell me which country was invaded by China? probably Tibet, that is if you consider it as a country in the first place.

China is no threat to America, as a chinese, I don’t wanna Taiwan to be part of China and condemns China’s aggressive move, I believe the majority chinese in China wants peace, after all, Chinese people are cowards. agree? when japan invade they run…

>Chinese people are cowards. agree?
There’s at least one, isn’t that quite obvious?

Heeey… we are in 2008… it’s not possible that!

Americans are so lucky to have the right to freedom of speech.

http://www.webepags.com

It seems that there are two governments in China. The central gov’t, which is serious about moving forward into the 21st century and changing old ways. And the rural (esp municipal) gov’ts that are mired in the communist past. (And the grey go-betweens that see the future but also see a lucrative nice in protecting those stuck in the past.)

Of course this event is deeply upsetting. As a blogger in China I can only sympathise. However its 1.3 Billion people being managed here and of course there are wrong acts. But before the anti China crowd begin to sing in unison it would be wise to consider what a Balkanization effect would have on the world if the centrally controlled leadership were dismantled.

I love all the “China is an evil monster that is going on a rampage of enslaving and killing everyone! RAWR!” rhetoric.

Jeebus, you guys need to put down the conspiracy theories and anti-Chinese propoganda. Holy toledo.

Look, if push came to shove, the United States wouldn’t go to war for Taiwan as it is already. Even Americans still value money over ideals at the end of the day. Let’s also be a bit more reasonable. For all of the posturing that comes out of Beijing, the central leadership isn’t really interested in taking Taiwan back by force either. It is extremely unlikely that they’d choose to fight a war to get a piece of land full of people their war has thoroughly alienated. Only Americans do that sort of stuff. Yes, the Chinese feel a certain nationalistic kinship and pride with their “brothers” across the Straits. Maybe it isn’t fully reciprocated, but aside from petty politicians and idealistic youth, no one on either side really wants force to be involved in the resolution of the China-Taiwan issue.

Regardless of what some Chinese people say, Taiwan is effectively its own country: It governs itself. It may be losing international recognition, but until Beijing can control what the people in Taiwan do, then it is more independent than not. The China-Taiwan issue is not about what IS, but about what COULD BE. It is not about NOW, it is about the FUTURE. Should the two reunify? Encourage them to sort it out.

But again, there is little point for China to forcibly annex Taiwan. It would just create more bad blood than there is today. For the most part, the best way for a possible reunification is through economic entanglements and integration. That’s happening, though we do a get a few lame outburts here and there from both sides about retarded shit like panda names and Olympic torch itineraries.

What in hell’s name has this got to do with conspiracy theories or Taiwan invasion scenarios? It’s about whether it’s right or wrong to beat someone to death for basic legitimate freedom of expression. Hint - it’s not a difficult answer - or shouldn’t be. This is a country that executes more people than any other and sells their organs on. But hey, they make cheap electronics and they can thumb their nose at the mighty ‘Amerika’. This year’s Olympics are going to be the world’s biggest display of obscene hypocrisy since 1936.

Was the Olympics ever supposed to be some sort of beacon for democratic values? I always thought it was about “faster, stronger, better”. And during the Cold War it became very clear that communist dictatorships are best at that, since Western free market democracies prefer “fatter, angrier, richer”. (Don’t get me wrong, I prefer the Western philosophy, but it doesn’t translate into Olympic success.)

The arbitrary limitations on what techniques you can use to become faster/stronger/better (some drugs are allowed, some aren’t, the choice being made apparently by throwing darts at the Periodic Table blindfolded) mean if the whole thing ever wasn’t a political charade, it certainly is now. We can expect a lot of high-quality competition and some amazing physical displays, but what we can’t expect is any sort of “Olympic ideal”. It’s long drowned in a sea of competing political propaganda.

I wish Chinese people would incorporate some PR training

@Derek Scruggs, fyi, the Americans here in the philippines (don’t forget the spelling) were kicked out of the bases in the 90s. though of course, the “balikatan” war games/exercises are still regularly carried out.

I don’t want to defend the Chinese government, but sometimes it is a case of different perceptions. If we saw police breaking up a demonstration in Australia we would think about those jobless, good for nothing protesters with nothing better to do, but if the same thing happens in China we would think of government-backed, police brutality and human rights violations.

Wow. I really appreciate you sharing. I am at a loss of words but if more people kept in tune of what is going on internationally here in America, they can appreciate the freedoms that they have.

Like one of the commentators said above, turn off the TV or if you tune in, watch news of substance! It is the glue to keep you plugged in of the happenings of the world.

from my experiences visiting china, their police are kind of excessively rude and think they have power over everything. however, boycotting the olympics is stupid. the olympics are creating lots of jobs and an economy boost for china, and taking that away is only going to make the situation worse.

In addition, police killed an innocent guy at the vancouver airport recently with a taser, didnt they? no one blamed ALL OF CANADA for it and no one is going to boycott vancouver 2010, are they? weird how its always china that gets blamed as a whole when only a small portion is doing something wrong. ugh.

Duncan it’s too late now, but you really should have put an addendum to your post noting that whether it’s a blogger or not hasn’t been confirmed because people obviously aren’t reading the comments and then they read tragedy as an attack on bloggers, which it totally wasn’t. The body of the CNN article doesn’t even mention the word blogger once, and most of the other sources are likely citing the same information. Thugs looking out for themselves, that’s what this was.

What were they thinking? They broke Chinese govt protocol. You’re supposed to take him to prison, and then beat him to death. That way no one sees it, which means, it didn’t happen. Ohhh…

This is a Real shame to China… this makes me angry on them & pity the blogger This will really create a very bad impression of everyone who sees this news and will have a negative impression on China’s so called communist Government..

At least with the freedom of information through the internet this stuff is out there, to raise awareness. In time awareness brings change