China rounds up, beats mourners for deposed leader Zhao: witnesses

[seriousstan]

BEIJING (AFP) - China has detained dozens of people, some of whom have been severely beaten, for trying to mark the death of former leader Zhao Ziyang, witnesses said.

The allegations came as the government intensified security to prevent mourners attending Saturday's funeral in Beijing for Zhao, the former Communist Party secretary general purged for opposing the 1989 military crackdown on the Tiananmen democracy movement.

At least three people, including a woman in her 70s, were punched and manhandled by police officers outside the government offices which receive complaints in the Chinese capital, witnesses said.


They were among some 60 people who pinned white paper flowers to their clothes, a traditional Chinese symbol of mourning, said a bystander who took pictures of the beatings and posted them on overseas websites.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050127/wl_afp/chinatiananmenpoliticspetitioners_050127114011

[agitpropagent9]

1. just another day

in a police state.

[Downtown Hound]

2. These are the people that own a huge chunk of our country

Meanwhile, Bush chases farmers with homemade bombs in Iraq. And failing miserably at it too I might add.

[David__77]

3. It would be far worse if a pro-US dictatorship came to power there.

That is what the Western powers would like to happen. They care about "democracy" only when a government dares to stand up for its sovereign interests. Once a pro-US regime came to power, more blood would be split and no one here would complain in the least.

[David__77]

4. Why does the US media not cover police brutality here at home?

I saw no stories highlighting witnesses' accounts of brutality, say, during the GOP convention.

[KingoftheJungle]

5. The funny thing is that our government desperately WANTS to be like China

Only white

[davidinalameda]

6. and they sell those same police batons at Wal-Mart