WENZHOU CITY, ZHEJIANG PROVINCE, February 15, 2013, (LifeSiteNews.com) – The father of a 13-month-old child who was killed when he was crushed under the wheels of a van driven by Chinese family planning officials has spoken out for the first time.
In an interview with the local Xian Dai Jin Bao News Agency, the father described his altercation with the officials, who were collecting a fine after the couple gave birth illegally to a third child, and the circumstances that led to the – apparently accidental – death of the child.
“At noon on February 4, as we were having lunch upstairs, we heard people talking downstairs. When we got downstairs, we saw several people rushing into our room, saying that they are leaders of Qing Xiang Community, who are coming to collect the ‘Social Compensation Fee,’” said Chen Li.
“I brought chairs for them, but they refused to sit down and talk. They also threatened me, saying ‘Don’t you flee today. Today, we are definitely bringing you back.”
“When we get out of my house, they were still dragging my clothes,” he explained. “I said, ‘You have torn my clothes.’ They said ’we will reimburse you for the clothes, but you have to go with us today.’ I said, ’I will go, but I have three children. My family wants to go together with me.’”
What happened next has been the source of much confusion and speculation in the media. Previous reports had said simply that somehow the child ended up underneath the wheels of the van as the officials left. Whether this was deliberate or an accident remained unclear. According to Chen's telling, it was an accident – but one precipitated by the confusion caused by the strong-arm tactics of the officials.
“When we left the house, my wife was already on the vehicle. There were many neighbors around the vehicle,” recounted Chen Li.
“My two daughters were standing by the car door. My elder daughter was holding her baby brother, and the baby was crying for his mother. Then I went over to the vehicle, carrying the baby, preparing to go into the vehicle. At that moment there were seven or eight government officials inside the vehicle, and my wife was also inside.
“I wanted to get into the car and handed my son to my wife. The baby was crying a lot, and it was very chaotic. I don’t know who pushed me, causing my baby to drop to the ground. At that time the car started moving, and I wasn’t able to get my baby before the tire crushed him. The baby was killed.”
According to a BBC news report, thousands of furious villagers protested the death of this baby outside the local government offices; and Xinhua has reported that the van driver and the Communist Party Secretary have been arrested, though it is unclear whether they have been charged.
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“Our hearts break to learn of the violent death of an innocent child, and we extend our deepest sympathy to his parents,” said Reggie Littlejohn, President of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, a human rights organization dedicated to ending the one-child policy.
“Those responsible for this violent death must be held accountable. Too often, under the glare of international scrutiny, the Chinese Communist Party will arrest officials who have committed a heinous human rights violation,” she said. “Then as soon as the attention of the world shifts away, these same officials are restored to their former positions or even promoted.”
Littlejohn compared the incident in Dongshantou village with other cases of violent injury and death at the hands of family planning officials. In one case documented by Littlejohn’s organization, family planning police smashed the father of an illegal second child in the head with a bottle. He is now permanently disabled. In another case, in Jiangsu Province, Family Planning Officials beat a farmer to death because his son was suspected of having an extra child.
In April 2011, in Linyi County, Shandong Province, a Family Planning Official murdered a man. They had come to seize his sister for a forced sterilization. Failing to find her, they started to beat their father. When the man defended his father, one of the Family Planning Officials plunged a knife in his heart, and he died.
“The spirit of the Red Guard lives on in the Family Planning Police, who too often function as domestic terrorists,” said Littlejohn.
China’s one-child policy is routinely enforced with coercive measures running from crippling fines to forced sterilization and forced abortion, even into the ninth month of pregnancy.
The couple whose baby was run over had been required to pay a fine of 30,000 yuan ($4,773 U.S.), according to China Daily.
The one-child policy has received heightened scrutiny in recent months, in large part thanks to social media. In one case, a photo of a woman, Feng Jianmei, lying next to the body of her unborn baby, which had been aborted forcibly in the seventh month of pregnancy, circulated widely around the world, sparking outrage in China and abroad.
Feng Janmei also recently spoke out to media,
But while China has said that forced abortions are illegal in the country, experts in human rights in the country say that such abortions occur regularly.
Opponents of the one-child policy have been subject to arrest, imprisonment, and brutal beatings at the hands of the government. One of the most prominent of such opponents, Chen Guangcheng, recently fled to the United States after spending years in prison and then under house arrest.
Recent reports have suggested that China may be considering abandoning the one-child policy, but last month a top family planning official strongly and unambiguously reaffirmed his country’s commitment to the policy.