China: no end to "ordinary" violence generated by lack of justice
Beijing (AsiaNews) - The "ordinary" violence on Chinese streets continues unabated: this morning a man - identified only as "He", 41 years old - attacked and stabbed to death a number of passers-by in the center of Shenzhen, a metropolis bordering Hong Kong. At least 3 people died and 3 others are seriously injured: the police stopped the attacker, who is currently hospitalized with injuries.
Police are so far unable to provide a motive for the attack. The man, who comes from the southern province of Guangdong Jieyang, however, is only the latest in a series of attackers who in recent weeks have triggered panic in different cities of the country. According to the latest reconstructions, most of the episodes were motivated by frustration over failure to obtain justice in matters relating to family planning or employment.
On 26 July, a man set fire to a long-term care hospice center, killing 11 people, over an unresolved dispute about his salary. The day before Dang Jinhua, 38, stabbed to death five people and seriously injured three others in the capital of the central province of Henan: according to the police, the attack was provoked by an unfair business competition that was not resolved by the authorities .
Finally, on 22 July a man in the southern province of Guangxi entered the local Family Planning Office killed 2 people and injured four others, always with the knife over an issue related to the one-child law. The man was arrested and is awaiting trial, but probably - according to local media - will be sentenced to death with immediate effect.
The government has tried to stop this trail of violence by banning the free purchase of knives in big cities, but the measure has proved useless so the ban was lifted after only 48 hours. Also, speaking with the Global Times, a Beijing police official admitted that it is "almost impossible" to prevent such cases, which arise from the repression and frustration of ordinary citizens, with no criminal record, far removed from the radar of public safety.
Several analysts argue that the real reason for these attacks of rage is due to the lack of justice in every area of Chinese public life. Activists for human rights, fighting against forced abortions and requisitioning of land, are arrested and sentenced to the harshest penalties; democratic lawyers, seeking to act according to law and in respect for the law, are subject to enormous pressure as well as detentions and abuses; ordinary citizens, who present millions of petitions to the central government against the injustices suffered in the provinces, disappear into "black jails" run by the police.
On the other hand, all national leaders have repeatedly stressed that justice, the legal system and the courts owe allegiance to the Communist Party and the government: the same Xi Jinping, despite the moralistic crusades launched since his election, has imposed this form of loyalty on the national judicial system. But since the Party is steeped in corruption, the judiciary is inundated by it.
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