Government employees arrested for murder of baby who was over one-child quota
Beijing (AsiaNews / Agencies) - The local secretary of the Communist Party, named Bai, and a driver named Cheng, were arrested by police for having run their car over a child of 13 months. His parents were about to be loaded onto a truck and taken to jail for violating the one-child law.
The tragedy occurred on Feb. 4, in the village of Mayu, near Wenzhou (Zhejiang). According to a report by Xinhua, at least 11 employees of the Office for population control had gone to the house of Chen Liandi and Li Yuhong, father and mother of the murdered child, "to try to persuade" the two to pay the fine for violating the one child only quota. The little 13 month old was in fact their third child.
The office's means of "persuasion" are well known: beatings, imprisonment, seizure of property, kidnapping, exorbitant fines.
Chen Liandi, the baby's father, said that government representatives demanded "between 30 to 40 thousand yuan" in a fine, otherwise they would have had to spend time in prison. Thirty thousand yuan is the annual income of a good skilled worker, and about 10 years of income of a poor peasant.
In the scuffle that ensued, the baby slipped away and the local chief of the party, along with his driver, ran him over with their car. His father's attempts to save him were useless, who was wounded in the operation.
The child died shortly after in hospital. Thousands of Mayu inhabitants flocked to the streets and protested outside the government offices.
The one-child policy in China is hated because it offends the traditional culture, which loves big families, and because it is applied with violence, even with forced abortion up to nine months and forced sterilizations. Many Chinese demographers warn of the danger of a rapidly aging population and the lack of young labor force. Nevertheless, the government continues to practice that law has "prevented 400 million births in China" in the past 30 years.
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