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.'"
I wonder how much they're paying this prominent local blogger. There might be other methods of persuasion involved, too... forgive me for my automatic suspicion of any "investigation" the Chinese government conducts.
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[Homer], ``Your first duty would be to step out on the balcony, and tell that crowd this plant is safe.'
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.
In wake of the widespread disbelief expressed across the Chinese internet with regard to the official explanation that a 24-year-old man died from serious brain injuries while playing hide-and-seek in a detention center...
Um, a 24 year old playing a kid's game. That's believable? Did I misread TFA?
What, the next time they'll say a guy died from playing patty-cake in prison?
Isn't that the plot of the new re-imagined Charlie Chan movie?
Bow-ties are cool.
and a good aggregation service
Fine with the rest, but goodluckwiththat. Online and offline news services still have the upper hand because you can go to one place and get all your news. Oh and amateur anythings suck at organizing themselves so I don't see this changing anytime soon.
mmmm...forbidden donut
The faded gold lettering on the door says "Philip Marlowe." My digs aren't in the greatest part of town, but that suits me just fine. I'm a blogger-one of the few honest ones out there. Work was a little slow-I was spending some time on important research-reading Slashdot. I was just about to hit the submit button on a post entitled "Frosty Piss!" when the dame shrugged her way through my door. If I'd have known what was going to happen next, I would have stuck to trolling.
She was tall for an Oriental, but not unappealing. She wore a black silk dress cut in traditional Chinese manner, studded with soft pink roses. Her eyes were black and silky as the dress. They didn't stay still. "Are you Marlowe?" she asked, scanning the room.
"Sure," I replied diffidently.
"Your blogging reputation proceeds you. The Chinese government has a job for you."
"Nuts to that. I don't work for commies."
"I could make it worth your while, Mr. Marlowe."
"If I sold out to every fancy-pants who walked through that door, would I be working in this place?"
"I understand your position, Marlowe, but listen. There's a 24-year-old kid who got beaten to death while in police custody. The police say it was from playing hide-and-seek. We need an official investigation, and you're the best investigational blogger we know."
"Sure it wasn't from 'ring around the rosie'?" I smirked nastily. She took a sharp breath.
"Listen, Marlowe, don't you want to help improve the situation? I know you've had certain...shall we say...run-ins with hyperactive authority figures in the past. Surely this could help your reputation."
"MY reputation?" I practically yelled. "Lady, I've been called a troll, a spammer, and an astroturfer more times than you can count on your abacus. I've been modded down, banned, accused of violating TOSs, but I'm still here. So don't think you can tell me about my reputation. I'll do it for $100/day plus expenses."
"Very good, Mr. Marlowe," she purred.
"Oh, and one more thing," I stood up and got my hat. "I'd better be on the official Chinese government blogroll by sundown, or you're gonna have to find yourself a new patsy."
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
People would trust their government a lot more in general if government officials were held accountable for everything like the general public. God knows we'd have very few lawsuits against police departments in the U.S. if police departments were the first ones on the case to reprimand employees for breaking the law. The main reason why China's government needs so much secrecy is the rampant corruption, brutality and criminality in its ranks.
I'm still waiting to see a good argument that traditional journalists are still necessary, and cannot be completely replaced by enthusiastic amateur bloggers and a good aggregation service. I'm not saying such an argument does not exist, but I'm still waiting to see it.
Enthusiastic amateur bloggers can't afford to travel across the world. Most bloggers just take content that's created by traditional journalists and then provide analysis and aggregation. Without traditional journalists, there wouldn't be many bloggers. I respect what bloggers do, but let's face it, most of their work rides on the coattails of real journalists and other bloggers.
My father told me once that my Grandfather was a poor student and had discipline problems. One of his teachers noticed his rebellious attitude and successfully countered it by giving him additional responsibilities over his classmates.
I think it's a variation on the adage "if you can't beat'em, join'em". If you are in a position of power and someone is criticising the way things are being handled, invite them to help you handle them. They will be forced to put up or shut up, and if they criticise further they will be criticising themselves, which humans don't enjoy doing publicly.
China gave us Sun Tzu and the Art of War, they have an ancient civilization that was only opened with opium, black powder, and cannonballs. Their everyday politics are probably fascinating.
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).
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
Yunnan is not an autonomous region. There does have quite a few autonomous prefectures/towns there, though.
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
If you're running a blog critical of the government in China, you've got to be pretty fearless, a lot stubborn and above all idealistic.
The obstacles They will throw in your way are worse than a thousand cuts but at least as numerous.
This guy was a complete strawman from the beginning, they have bribed him beyond anything imaginable or he's genuine.
It would be a pretty useless, threatening him or his family - They could not do anything without seriously exposing them to public outrage. The Chinese public is a bit tender right now due to widespread loss of jobs, a hard drought hitting the northeast, the overspending of money and conflicts over housing for the Beijing Olympics, the riots in Tibet last year and the aftermath of the earthquake disaster in Sichuan province.
Nope, I don't think the Party will risk anything in these times. China has come a long way towards wealth and peace in only the last ten years and it would be a shame and absolutely unreasonable to even the most simplistic peasant somewhere in Guandong to endanger this progress.
After all, this is a corruption like everywhere else in the world and nothing that couldn't be solved by executing the conspiracy leaders. China has quite a track record in executing even high Party officials when they committed serious and verifiable crimes- and they did it publicly.
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.
Currently hooked on AMP
"So; you'll do this for us?"
"Um, yeah; sure."
"Gee, thanks. We know you'll do the job to everyone's satisfaction.... Oh, nice family, by the way. Be a shame if anything happened to them...."
Regards;