Teen Killed At Chinese Internet Addiction Camp

eldavojohn writes "Sixteen-year-old Deng Senshan was tragically beaten to death by three of his instructors in an internet addiction camp in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of China. Reportedly it was for not being able to run fast enough. An article in the Wall Street Journal says that, 'China's netizens have played a key role in drawing nationwide attention to recent cases of deaths in prisons and detention centers, so it should be no surprise that they are up in arms over the fate of one of their own. Many questioned the fairly new diagnosis of "Internet addiction" as a mental disorder.' You may recall electroshock treatment being banned from use on internet addicts in China. According to Xinhua, more than 100 juveniles remain in 'treatment' at the camp, which has stayed open. Perhaps for Senshan it would have been better to let him endure his cruel affliction instead of having his parents pay over $1,000 to have him beaten to death?"

Comments

Meet the new China...same as the old China

[Mr. Underbridge]

Perhaps for Senshan it would have been better to let him endure his cruel affliction instead of having his parents pay over $1,000 to have him beaten to death?

And knowing China, they probably also charged his parents for the cost of the stick used to beat him.

Also, I don't know much about these "internet addiction" facilities. Are we talking about people who spend too much time playing WoW, or dissidents who use the internet for communication? Somehow I'm seeing this as being a gulag for political prisoners, but maybe that's just me being cynical.

Re:Meet the new China...same as the old China

[icegreentea]

Maybe there are some camps that are gulags. But I think the majority of the cases are 'legit'. My family is Chinese (from Taiwan, pretty much same culture) and we live in Canada, so I got a relatively watered down version of the 'Asian/Chinese Parents' thing. And I can really see parents sending off their kids for spending too much time playing video games. Among my circle of friends, I know a lot of kids who just utterly fucked up school from gaming too much (this is before alcohol and drugs... and forget about girls), and I know a lot of their parents would try to do more. But really, a motivated teenager is going to somehow get around nearly everything their parents will try. I remember when my parents locked up the TV behind a cabinet so my brother and I would spend less time watching TV/playing SNES (yeah, that was a while ago). We just took the cabinet doors off its hinges whenever they were gone (even the best parents can't be there all the time).

So, given conditions in China (those parents are bound to be away working more than the typical parents here), as well as how addicting those games really are, and that Chinese parents generally really do want their kids to 'succeed', I really can see parents sending kids off to Internet (or Gaming) addiction camp. I mean hell, we have Fat Camps in North America to deal with our problem with obese kids, they have Internet Addiction Camps to deal with their problem with kids gaming way too much. This is no excuse for abuse and killing the poor kid. That shit's fucking horrible. Fuckers should be put in jail. And I think they will be. China might be a totalitarian government, but they still have to pretend to care.

Re:Is he actually the first person who has died?

[ausekilis]

What is truly remarkable about this particular story is they say their son started this training Saturday, and was declared dead on Sunday (3 am was it?). Even worse, the mission statement said their methods were "harsh, but no harm will be done", yet the body was bloody and showed signs of restraint and struggle (handcuff bruising on his wrists).

The poor kid didn't even make it one day, yet the camp took a stand much like the Chinese government, denying that anything happened and that the kid had a fever. Apparently in China fevers involve a bruised/bloodied face and handcuffs. China has had attention called to it's human rights violations before, now that we are seeing the murder of a child that didn't do anything wrong in worldwide news, maybe we'll start seeing global pressure on China to change their ways a bit.

Not just China

[Psyborgue]

This sort of thing happens all the time in the states. Google "Aaron Bacon" and he's hardly the only one. US boot camps have a really bad history in this area only nobody seems to care very much since they kids were somehow "troubled" (allegedly, since there is no due process).