Protests broke out in China’s northern province of Shaanxi on Thursday, a week after a teenage boy fell to his death from a school dormitory.
The protest was unusually large and fierce for subjects of the authoritarian Chinese Communist regime. Security forces responded with vicious beatings, while government censors frantically deleted videos of the scuffles posted to social media.
The victim of the January 2 dormitory accident, a 17-year-old identified only by his surname “Deng” (as is common in Chinese media), was a third-year student at the Pucheng Vocational Education Center.
According to local officials, Deng was awakened on the night of his death by other students talking loudly in the dormitory. He launched into a “verbal and physical altercation” with another student, which was broken up by a school official.
What happened next is uncertain. Deng’s body was discovered by another student outside the dormitory building later that evening. The sliding window of a bathroom overhead was open, and a wooden stool was reportedly discovered under the window.
The police conducted a hasty autopsy and decided his death was not a “criminal case.” The school issued a statement describing his death as an “accident where a student fell from a height.”
Deng’s family rejected this account of the young man’s death, insisting that he was “bullied on campus” and his body displayed injuries that were inconsistent with death from a fall. The family said police hustled them away from viewing the body before they could perform a thorough examination.
The family also said the school told them its surveillance system was mysteriously “damaged” so there was no security footage from the night of Deng’s death to review. When his relatives took possession of his cell phone, they found some of his photos had been deleted without explanation.
According to Human Rights in China, a non-governmental watchdog organization, the police wrapped up their investigation and declared the case “closed” in less than 24 hours.
Some Chinese social media users speculated that Deng was driven to commit suicide by extreme bullying, which is a very sensitive topic in China, as several other deaths have recently resulted from bullying, including a case of outright murder last month.
The public concluded police were covering up the circumstances of Deng’s death. The situation turned ugly with a speed and scope that seemed to take local officials by surprise – and Chinese Communist officials do not like surprises.
Thousands of protesters swarmed around the Pucheng school, demanding accountability for Deng and full disclosure of the details around his death. Young demonstrators tried to storm campus buildings, and they fought back when confronted by the police.
Videos from the chaotic scene showed police falling back as the crowd flung pieces of debris at them. The police deployed tear gas, then began clubbing demonstrators with their batons. Several videos depicted both male and female protesters wiping blood from their heads.
Lin Shengliang, founder of the Chinese Human Rights Accountability Database, told Voice of America News (VOA) that local officials “expected these people to believe what they said” and were taken aback by the skeptical response. He said this led to an “inevitable” showdown because “people have long been dissatisfied with society” and “distrust the government.”
VOA cited local reports that the protests outside Deng’s school reached their height last Sunday, and had mostly subsided by the beginning of this week.
Shaanxi citizen journalists reported the Pucheng Vocational Education Center has been placed under “stability maintenance” measures, which included sending some students home and warning them not to make contact with other students or participate in public demonstrations.
“Do not speak publicly, do not post, comment on or like any related content on online platforms, and do not start, give credence to or spread rumors,” the school ordered its students.
Most videos of the protests have been scrubbed from Chinese social media, and no reports of the unrest have been published in state media.
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