China Clamps Down On Online Justice

[CShine]

The case of a woman BMW driver who ran over and killed a peasant farmer she had accused of scratching her luxury car has taken China by storm. There was a torrent of angry comment on the internet after the woman was found guilty of no more than a minor traffic offence and got away with a suspended sentence. Alarmed by the public reaction, Communist Party leaders have ordered the case reopened - but have also clamped down on further debate by telling the official media to drop the subject and closing down internet chat rooms.

A small case of apparent road rage became a national obsession. The case has provided a graphic illustration not just of the extent of popular feelings about corruption and inequality but also of the internet's ability to affect the workings of a weak legal system in a country where there is no other outlet for public dissent.

It all started on the morning of 16 October last year when a tractor pulling a load of green onions scraped the side of Su Xiuwen's metallic-silver BMW in a crowded market in the northern city of Harbin. Ms Su reportedly swore and hit out at the poor farmer and his wife who had got down from their tractor to apologise, then drove her luxury car straight into the growing crowd on the roadside, killing the farmer's wife and injuring 12 others. Ms Su's suspended sentence for what the judge ruled was an "accidental traffic disturbance" touched off rumours that her wealthy businessman husband was related to senior provincial officials.

The "BMW case", as it has become known, occurred in a part of the country that has been plunged into unemployment by China's free market reforms and it soon struck a chord among the country's estimated 80 million internet users. A trickle of protest turned into a national obsession, thanks first to China's dozens of internet chat rooms and later to the wider state-run news media. One website alone, Sina.com, reported 200,000 emails on the subject, more than 90% of them saying the sentence was too light.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3409995.stm

[POed_Ex_Repub]

1. Is it too late to make Janklow our ambassador to China?

I think he could learn a valuable lesson over there... call it a hunch.

[damnraddem]

2. Hey, learn from this --

this is what our future looks like if the Bushistas have their way.