China
Pleas of mother of a deceased China school boy triggers online protests
Chengdu: The death of a minor student in his school in Chinese city of Chengdu has triggered widespread online protest after his parents raised questions over an initial investigation that suggested he had taken his own life, without providing any details, media reports said.
The education bureau in Chengdu’s Chenghua district issued a one-page statement on Tuesday saying that a student surnamed Lin at Chengdu No 49 Middle School was found to have jumped to his death on Sunday evening, reports The South China Morning Post.
A joint statement by the district propaganda department, the police and the education bureau said that investigators had come to the initial conclusion that “the student took his own life due to personal problems”, the newspaper reported.
They said there was no evidence suggesting foul play, and they had not found “problems such as corporal punishment, verbal violence, teachers’ misconduct and bullying” at the school. The investigators said the school had “weak links” in providing psychological care for students, reported the newspaper.
Chenghua police branch was quoted as saying by the newspaper that its own investigation had ruled out criminal acts and that it had informed the family, who “had no objection to the investigation’s conclusion”.
However, the mother of the minor claimed that she had not yet been allowed to see her son’s body.
“It was Mother’s Day. My son said ‘happy Mother’s Day’ to me before he went to school,” the minor's mother, whose surname is Lu, wrote on Weibo before the police statement.
“I cannot accept this. I happily sent my son, who was full of vigour then, to school at about 5pm and you told me [he died at school] an hour later?” she said as quoted by the newspaper.
The mother said the police took more than two hours to notify her after the incident.
“I wanted to check with classmates and teachers about what happened,” she said. “But the school immediately dismissed all the students in the class and warned them to keep quiet … We spent the night waiting outside the school entrance but we still got no answers.”
Lu's remarks triggered an online social media protest as thousands voiced their anger and backed her call for greater transparency.
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