Thousands of Chinese rally behind mother's call for transparent probe into son's death
May 13, 2021
Beijing [China], May 13 : Thousands of Chinese people have voiced their anger and expressed their support to 'calls for transparent probe' by a woman, who lost her 17-year-old child in his school, after an initial investigation by 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, reported South China Morning Post (SCMP).
They also said that there was no evidence suggesting foul play, and they had not found "problems such as corporal punishment, verbal violence, teachers' misconduct and bullying" at the school.
"After on-site inspections, speaking to witnesses, checking surveillance records, inspecting electronic data, checking documentary evidence and autopsy, it was determined that Lin died by falling from a high place," the police later said, supporting the investigation.
However, Lin's mother, Lu, who had already questioned the transparency of the initial investigation, said that "too many unanswered questions" still remained.
"It was Mother's Day. My son said 'happy Mother's Day' to me before he went to school," Lu wrote on the Chinese micro-blogging site Weibo.
Lu also alleged that the police took over two hours to notify her after the incident, while her request to view the complete surveillance camera footage was rejected, reported SCMP.
"I wanted to check with classmates and teachers about what happened... But the school immediately dismissed all the students in the class and warned them to keep quiet ... We spent the night waiting outside the school entrance but we still got no answers," she further said.
Her comments caused uproar online as thousands voiced their anger and backed her call for greater transparency, SCMP reported.
"There were no details, no timeline, no surveillance footage, no autopsy report, no witnesses' accounts, yet they concluded that his death was due to 'personal problems'?" one person said.
Even official Chinese media weighed in by saying that all questions must be answered without delay.
