Slashdot Mirror
Chinese Blogger Chosen As Head of Investigation
Lew Perin writes "China hasn't developed much of a reputation for government transparency. And in Yunnan province, the case of a guy who died in police custody was starting to look like a cover up. But then the provincial government startled everyone by choosing a prominent local blogger to head the official investigation into the death. 'The unorthodox move to make popular bloggers heads of an investigation committee is a tacit admission by the Yunnan government of the power of the internet — especially blogs — in shaping Chinese public opinion. It also belies the widespread suspicion of the official version of Li's death.'"
It is not a tacit admission. It is an implied admission.
Don't use words unless you know what they mean. It won't make you look smarter; you will screw it up and look even dumber.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
It seems to me that Western mainstream media still regards bloggers (I'm not talking about journalists who happen to have blogs, I'm talking about pure bloggers) as some kind of group of fringe weirdos.
It seems the climate is changing somewhat, as CNN uses the concept of "iReporters" pretty heavily these days.
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In case you are interested, here's some background info based on my readings..
The victim who died in police custody, Li, is a criminal suspect waiting for his trial in custody (according to Chinese court procedure). His death, according to the police, was the result of a physical conflict between him and another suspect. It was believed that the two suspects quarrelled over a dispute after playing some kind of game to kill time (games are usually forbidden, but they did it when the policemen were not watching). The quarrel escalated to physical conflict and Li, who was substantially weaker than his adversary, succumbed to his blow.
Li's death raised serious concern among "the blogosphere". It was suspected that Li might be a victim of torture by the police. Rumor has it that torture is a common practice of the Chinese police, and this is an often-discussed topic here.
The investigate which took place Friday proved to be very difficult. According to Chinese law, most information from the custodians are classified (e.g. security video record). The investigation team also tried to interview Li's attacker, but they were refused because the only one allowed to exchange information with the pre-trial suspect is his attorney. The blogger (whose moniker is "end tip of the wind") was far from being a professional investigator. He apparently lacked a grasp of criminal law and court procedures, and wasted much time on the stuff he had no hope of obtaining from the beginning. (I guess he needed an "IANAL" tag from /.)
The problem with this affair is the timing. Everything happened in the short time window of pre-trial custody, the least transparent period of criminal prosecution. This gave arise to reasonable questions as well as wild guesses.
They should have sent a pro. This blogger was supposed to be part of a gesture of "transparency" but he's a noob. IMHO he only made the situation worse. Conspiracy? Maybe or maybe not.
Disclaimer: I'm a Chinese (teh horror!) and IANAL (of course).
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Yunnan, due to its significant minority populations, is an autonomous region of China. They do get a fair degree of 'freedom' into how they run things, relative to the rest of the country.
beÂlie
tr.v. be-lied, be-ly-ing, be-lies
To give a false representation to; misrepresent: "He spoke roughly in order to belie his air of gentility" (James Joyce).
To show to be false; contradict: Their laughter belied their outward grief.
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You can get a little more perspective by reading sites like chinaSMACK. It's pretty good for finding out how the average Chinese netizen sees things (with the caveat that the average of netizens may not be the same as the average person, though net cafes do seem pretty widespread).