When suspicious incidents repeat themselves, official explanations become even less believable. Last winter, “Bitter Winter” covered the national scandal surrounding the disappearance and death of Hu Xinyu, a 15-year-old boy from the private Zhiyuan Middle School in Shangrao city, Jiangxi. Hu disappeared from the school on October 14, 2022, and his story became a national affair on social media.
On January 29, 2023, more than three months later, the police announced that Hu’s body had been discovered in an old warehouse just 100 meters from the school and that the boy had committed suicide there. The whole story was not persuasive and, while some netizens resorted to wild conspiracy theories to explain what happened, the official version was not believable either.
Now, another national scandal has erupted at Yuhuayuan School in Ningling County, which is under the prefecture-level city of Shangqiu, Henan. The dead body of Xiao Yang, a 14-year-old brilliant student at the elite private junior high school, was found on December 24 lying in front of the dormitory building. A teacher informed Xiao Yang’s grandfather and the family went to the morgue of Ningling County’s People’s Hospital, where the body had been moved. The relatives found bruises and signs on Xiao Yang’s body that they believe were not caused by the fall but proved that the boy had been beaten and possibly tortured before dying.
The police insisted that the student had committed suicide, which the family refused to believe, objecting that he had excellent school results and good relationships with his relatives. What makes this case different from Hu Xinyu’s is that this time the protest was not confined to the Internet. On December 27, many gathered for a candlelight vigil in front of the school, and some 10,000 took part in a demonstration there on December 28, which generated clashes with the police and arrests.
Only after the protests, authorities in Ningling County claimed that they had found a “suicide note” in Xiao Yang’s room on December 27, which had been authenticated by calligraphy experts, according to a report the County released on January 2.
Not surprisingly, the fact that the so-called “suicide note” took several days to be found and that the police refused to share it with the media or the public out, they said, of respect for the deceased and his parents, reinforced the suspicion of foul play. It is not uncommon in China that students are bullied and beaten by both classmates and teachers, although the official report denied it ever happened.
The official version is not incompatible with the theory that Xiao Yang jumped to his death: perhaps he committed suicide because he had been harassed and tortured. But, once again, it is the lack of transparency that generates mistrust and protests.
The public mobilization of some 10,000 citizens, although repressed by the police, demonstrated that until and unless the CCP manages to totally control or suppress social media, Chinese are increasingly willing to risk being arrested as they publicly protest what they perceive as cover-ups and injustices. (Bitter Winter)