Grieving Chinese parents protest school collapse

BEIJING: Hundreds of parents protesting shoddy school construction that they say led to the deaths of their children in the May earthquake were harassed by riot police on Tuesday and criticized by local government officials, the parents said Wednesday.

Local officials were also trying to buy the silence of the parents by offering them about $8,700, if they signed a contract agreeing not to raise the school issue further, several parents said.

The confrontation between grieving parents and the police erupted on Tuesday morning as 200 parents protested outside the government offices in the city of Mianzhu, in southern China's quake-ravaged Sichuan Province, said Liu Guangyuan, a carpenter who took part in the protest.

It was the latest in a series of protests held by grieving parents, many of whom lost their only child in the quake. This emotional challenge to local governments in Sichuan has marred China's image with the approach of next month's Olympic Games in Beijing, and the Chinese authorities have ordered the police to crack down on the rallies. Chinese news organizations have also been told by the central government not to report on the schools, and all journalists are barred from approaching the sites of the collapses.

The parents in Mianzhu were demanding Tuesday that the government offer a full report on why the Dongqi Middle School collapsed, killing at least 200 of the school's 900 students.

The Chinese government has reported that a total of 7,000 classrooms collapsed during the May 12 earthquake, and some people estimate that 10,000 of the nearly 70,000 confirmed deaths were schoolchildren.

In the aftermath of the quake, many local governments promised to formally investigate the school collapses, but parents across Sichuan complain they have yet to receive any reports.

The parents of the Dongqi schoolchildren gathered at 10 a.m. and demanded to meet the mayor, but no officials came out for any serious discussion, said Liu, whose son died in the school collapse.

Instead, an official said the parents were violating public security laws "and ordered us to leave within two minutes," Liu said. "Then the riot police started pushing and dragging. Some of the outraged parents got into physical confrontations with the police. I saw eight or nine parents carried away to patrol cars parked on the side."

Liu said he had heard that the parents were taken to a police station, but it was unclear exactly what happened to them.

A person answering the telephone at the Mianzhu government offices on Wednesday said officials were in a meeting and could not talk to a reporter.

Liu said the parents of Dongqi students were asked to sign a contract agreeing to receive 60,000 yuan from the government of Sichuan Province, but most of the parents involved in the protest refused to sign.

The amount "is far from enough to appease the grief," he said.

"It makes us feel like we acknowledge our children's deaths by receiving money," Liu said. "We raised our children for 18 or 19 years. How much effort and love have we put into that?"

Liu said the Dongqi parents from Dongqi Middle School would petition their case at higher levels of government. Many of the parents are farmers or self-employed small businesspeople.

The school was built in 1975 and renovated in 1981, Liu said. "When my son entered the school in 2006, they promised to build new buildings," he added. "This was written in the enrollment welcome letter. But they didn't keep their word, and then the earthquake happened."

A father from another school in Mianzhu that suffered a collapse said parents at that school had also been asked by government officials to sign a contract to receive $8,700 in compensation. The parents would also receive pensions once they reach their 60s. In return, the parents would acknowledge that their children died in the schools because of the earthquake and would agree not to disturb reconstruction efforts, said the father, Zhang Longfu.

"Parents are generally concerned about the contract and are not willing to sign it because they're afraid that by signing it, they'll be admitting that their children's deaths are not related to the shoddy school building," said Zhang, who lost a daughter in the collapse of Fuxin No. 2 Primary School in Wufu town, Mianzhu.

Zhang said some leaders of the parents met Tuesday with the vice mayor of Mianzhu, who acknowledged that the schools were poorly built and had some hidden safety problems, but insisted that the 7.9-magnitude earthquake was ultimately responsible for the collapses.

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