Thursday, November 13, 2008 at 12:25 am
Yang Jia: Stranger than Fiction
This is from our colleague Jessie Jiang, who is following the trials and tribulations of convicted cop killer and surprise internet hero, Yang Jia, a case that is producing fascinating insights not only into the Chinese justice system but the attitude of ordinary Chinese towards the police:
Looks like the stranger-than-fiction tale of Yang Jia just took another bizarre turn. Liu Xiaoyuan, a Beijing lawyer who has been closely following the case, reported on Monday that the cop killer's mother, Wang Jingmei, has finally emerged in public after disappearing for four months. According to Liu's blog, Wang was secretly kept in a psychiatric hospital run by the Beijing Police Bureau throughout the prosecution of her son. A female officer who answered the phone at Beijing's Office of Compulsory Treatment --which is responsible for cases like Wang's--refused to comment or give her name when contacted Wednesday.
Wang's disappearance, which came after her visit to a police station to help in the investigation of her son, has heightened skepticism about the case and raised questions about Liu's allegation that the police might have kidnapped her to prevent her testifying in her son's case. (For example, artist and blogger Ai Weiwei argued here that Wang might be the only person who knows the details of how her son was beaten by the Shanghai cops in 2007 and the ensuing negotiation process between the police and Yang over that beating, all of which took place before the murders.) In Wang's absence, the court overrode accusations of police misconduct and put Yang on death row.
So far, public reaction to this latest episode has been surprisingly calm, thanks partly to the swift removal of related discussion threads on major BBS sites such as tianya.cn and mop.com. Blogs, however, remained largely intact. Here's what Lianyue, a veteran columnist for Southern Weekly, wrote in a blog post entitled "Driven Crazy":
"Wang Jingmei may not be psychotic, but the authority kindly decided she is; Yang Jia, who might actually be crazy, was hastily pronounced by the authority to be normal; Whether they are sick or not, it is the authority who always wins… And if you are not crazy yet, you'll eventually be driven crazy in this country."
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Simon Elegant was born in Hong Kong and since then China has pretty much always been at the center of his life. Read more
Liam Fitzpatrick was born in Hong Kong and joined TIME in 2003. He edits Time Global Adviser and is also Time Asia's senior writer. Read more
Ling Woo Liu worked as a television reporter in Beijing and moved to Hong Kong to report for TIME Asia. Read more
Bill Powell is a senior writer for TIME in Shanghai. He'd been Chief International correspondent for Fortune in Beijing, then NYC. Read more
Austin Ramzy studied Mandarin in China and has a degree in Asian Studies. He has reported for TIME Asia in Hong Kong since 2003. Read more
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Thursday, November 13, 2008 at 10:23 am
Ah ! Mental hospital as substitute for prison. Another great way to reduce number of prisoners in China !!!!
Thursday, November 13, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Do your homework about American history to see what happened to those great President Killers before you say this. Looks you know less about America than people from other countries do, if you ARE from America, which is in doubt, even with a American registration name.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008 at 10:12 am
[...] According to Yang's testimony, he was wrongly accused by the Shanghai police for stealing bicycle in 2007 and suffered from physical abuse during the detention. However, in a close door trial in August, Yang was sentenced to death without a reasonable explanation of his intention in the verdict [zh]. Many considered the trial unfair as the lawyer that Yang's father hired were denied and the government appointed another lawyer, a legal consultant for Zhabei district government [zh], to represent Yang. More scandalous is the fact that Yang's mother, Wang Jingmei, had been kept in a psychiatric hospital [zh] run by the Beijing Police Bureau for about four months, throughout the prosecution of her son. (English briefing see Yang Jia: Stranger than Fiction) [...]
Thursday, November 27, 2008 at 9:57 am
[...] (0) | Permalink | Trackbacks (0) | Email This The wierd case of cop-killer Yang Jia (details here) continues to resonate through the Chinese internet even after his execution on November 25th. [...]
Saturday, November 29, 2008 at 2:57 pm
[...] Glaubt man Yangs Aussage, so wurde er von der Shanghaier Polizei fälschlich beschuldigt, 2007 ein Fahrrad gestohlen zu haben, und soll von der Polizei während seiner Haft physisch misshandelt worden sein. In einem nicht-öffentlichen Verfahren wurde er im August zum Tode verurteilt, ohne dass im Urteil eine nachvollziehbare Erklärung für seine Tat gegeben worden wäre. Viele hielten den Prozess für unfair, da der Anwalt, den Yangs Vater engagiert hatte, abgelehnt wurde und die Regierung Yang Jia einen anderen Anwalt beistellte, einen Rechtsberater der Regierung des Bezirks Zhabei. Skandalöser ist allerdings die Tatsache, dass Yangs Mutter, Wang Jingmei, monatelang in einem vom Pekinger Polizeibüro betriebenen psychiatrischen Krankenhaus festgehalten wurde. (Eine englische Darstellung: Yang Jia: Stranger than Fiction) [...]
Sunday, November 30, 2008 at 9:03 pm
[...] Glaubt man Yangs Aussage, so wurde er von der Shanghaier Polizei fälschlich beschuldigt, 2007 ein Fahrrad gestohlen zu haben, und soll von der Polizei während seiner Haft physisch misshandelt worden sein. In einem nicht-öffentlichen Verfahren wurde er im August zum Tode verurteilt, ohne dass im Urteil eine nachvollziehbare Erklärung für seine Tat gegeben worden wäre. Viele hielten den Prozess für unfair, da der Anwalt, den Yangs Vater engagiert hatte, abgelehnt wurde und die Regierung Yang Jia einen anderen Anwalt beistellte, einen Rechtsberater der Regierung des Bezirks Zhabei. Skandalöser ist allerdings die Tatsache, dass Yangs Mutter, Wang Jingmei, monatelang in einem vom Pekinger Polizeibüro betriebenen psychiatrischen Krankenhaus festgehalten wurde. (Eine englische Darstellung: Yang Jia: Stranger than Fiction) [...]
Saturday, April 4, 2009 at 8:42 am
[...] year. She may have been the only person with details of Yang’s beating in 2007. According to Time China Blog , without her, allegations of police abuse were [...]