A Female Public Security Officer in China

(News.163)  This original story is just the typical one about a corrupt public official in China.  49-year-old An Huijun was the public security director in Lowu district, Shenzhen City, Guangdong province.  In her job performance, she was nationally famous for using innovative technological methods to solve crimes.  However, she has been found guilty of receiving bribes to the amount of 310,000 yuan and 40,000 Hong Kong dollars.  She has been sentenced to 15 years of jail time.  Previously, she was reported to assign young and handsome police men to take care of her personal needs on business trips.  There is no mention of these other allegations by the prosecutor.

So what is the big deal?  

The big deal came when Nanchong Evening News in Nanchong City, Jiangxi province decided to carry this story.  Here is the front page on June 18 (from BlogChina):

The big headline across the top of the front page is about the secondary school examination results.  The big photo on the left is about an underground beancurd factory that is set up next to a pig sty.  The An Huijun story merited a short rectangular box near the bottom right, with the heading "Shenzhen Lowu District female public security director receives 15 years in jail for taking bribes."  A photo of a female police officer is included.

This was enough to cause a huge storm.

What happened?  The photo used by Nanchang Evening News was that of Ren Zhangxia (任長霞), a deceased public security officer in Dengfeng City, Henan province, who was voted as the model people's hero around the country.  Her funeral in April 2004 was attended by more than 200,000 citizens.  She was the subject of a book, a television drama as well as a movie.  It has been said that there are two landmarks in Dengfeng City, one is the Shaolin Temple and the other is Ren Zhangxia.

A citizen of Nanchang recognized the face in the photo on the front page and called up the newspaper immediately.  The party on the line evidently had no idea what has happened, and said that he'll look into it.  "After all, it was just a mismatched picture and what is the big deal anyway?"  When the citizen condemned the person for being irresponsible and demanded to speak to the person-in-charge at the newspaper, the other party identified himself as the person-in-charge and told the citizen not to cause trouble.  The citizen said that he would have to call the Nanchang City Party Committee to complain, but the other party only said, "We don't care if you call the Politburo in Beijing" and then hung up the telephone.

The citizen said, "This is too much!  How can the party organ of the City Party Commitee commit such a major political error!?  Could it be that the editors and reporters have no idea what Ren Zhangxia looked like?  What was the point of the City Party Committee organizing the people to watch the movie and the exhibits about her accomplishments?  Was it all a waste of time?"

Well, in spite of what the newspaper's 'person-in-charge' believed, here is what happened:

• Front page editor -- dismissed and banned from working in the news industry in Jiangxi province for the next three years.
• Director of the Editing Room -- dismissed.
• Deputy Editor-in-chief -- dismissed.
• Editor-in-chief -- received unspecified administrative punishment.
• Nanchang Evening News -- temporarily suspended for re-organization.

What really happened?  Nobody knows for sure.  Was it a carelessness?  Was it an inside joke?  Was it sabotage?  No explanation has been given.  The BlogChina report contains the speculation that Nanchang Evening News was a party newspaper that has been losing money steadily and would have gone under if not for the heavy subsidies; its staff members were political appointees who were under no pressure or obligation to act professionally and did not care about their work either.  That would be a total contrast with the privatized and competitive newspapers such as Nanfang Daily and Beijing News.

(6Park)  After a suspension of several days, Nanchang Daily came back with a vengeance on June 27.  New and improved, it was not.  On the front page of June 28, it reported that the National People's Congress is evaluating four draft laws, one of which was "Administrative detention is not appropriate for adults" when it should obviously be for "minors."  The newspaper was withdrawn from all newsstands in Nanchang.  No word on what happened to the staff.

The following F*L*G excerpt offers an explanation about how Ren Zhangxia died.

(Ren*min*bao via Omnitalk)

Over the past few years, many who followed the orders of Jiang Zemin and the Chinese Communist Party, particularly those public security officers who actively particpated in the oppression of F*L*G members have met unfavorable events.  They either got seriously ill, or they contract interminable diseases, or they run into life-threatening accidents, or they die violently, sometimes even involving their family members.  These things happen in every province, municipality and place in China, and there are large numbers of them.

A relatively famous case is Ren Zhangxia, who is promoted by the Chinese Communists as the "People's Good Guardian."

Ren Zhangxia died in a mysterious car accident.  The local people all said that she worked too hard for Jiang Zemin and the Chinese Communist, that she did too many bad things, that she spared no means of oppressing F*L*G and that she was shockingly cruel.  That was why she met a horrible end.  In order to conceal the horrible fate of Ren Zhangxia and to deceive other police officers to continue to work for the Chinese Communists, all the media from the local ones to the national ones 'elected' Ren as the "People's Good Guardian."  The Communist leaders even personally received Ren's family members.  Although many nice things have been said about Ren, the local population still believed that she met her due justice.