The mysterious death of a 17-year-old student at Chengdu No 49 Middle School on Sunday in China Sichuan province sparked a public outcry in China
Beijing [China], May 14 (ANI): The mysterious death of a 17-year-old student at Chengdu No 49 Middle School on Sunday in China’s Sichuan province sparked a public outcry in China. Uniformed police quickly dispersed the protesters, knocking some to the ground and tackling others, then pushing them away, as seen in several videos that went viral online, reported Los Angeles Times. It was the latest in a series of recent student deaths in China that have left parents heartbroken and struggling with inadequate answers or accountability for how their children died. Public anger continued to grow, with millions of online views and comments demanding clarity on the death of the student, snowballing into a rare outburst reminiscent of the demands for free speech that flooded China’s internet when whistle-blowing Wuhan doctor Li Wenliang died of COVID-19 at the start of the pandemic last year. The public anger was a reminder of the frustration with official secrecy and hunger for transparency that simmer beneath the surface in China, and that sometimes can pressure authorities into responding, reported Los Angeles Times. In this case, they did — though government clarification came with a price: a silencing of the dead youth’s family and a surge of online nationalists accusing those who sought answers of being « tools of foreign forces » trying to instigate unrest. He was cremated on Thursday. As per the education department of Chengdu and police suggested that the boy had died by suicide. 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 « due to personal problems » on Sunday, which sparked an uproar.
