The standoff between authorities and thousands of residents outside a hotel in Shishou has ended, after officials imposed a curfew, reportedly made dozens of arrests and retrieved the body of the young man whose mysterious death had sparked the protest.
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Clashes end in Shishou as curfew imposed
Kelly Chan
22 June 2009
The standoff between authorities and thousands of residents outside a hotel in Shishou has ended, after officials imposed a curfew, reportedly made dozens of arrests and retrieved the body of the young man whose mysterious death had sparked the protest.
A resident living near the hotel said by telephone that calm had been restored in the southern city in Hubei province yesterday.
“We could go out this morning because the curfew was over. Now there are only plain-clothes police outside the hotel,” he said. “But you will be in trouble if you [gather and] talk near the scene.”
He said he had heard that about 80 people, including the family of the dead man, Tu Yuangao , had been arrested on Saturday and the body had been moved to a funeral home for cremation.
“The internet access was suspended [on Saturday], as well as the power supply and mobile phone signals,” the resident said.
“They also prevented people entering the city by refusing vehicles at the highway toll stations.”
Tu, a 24-year-old chef at the Yonglong Hotel, was found dead outside the building on Wednesday.
Police said he had leaped from the building, but his family rejected the explanation.
Residents said there were no bloodstains on the ground where the body was found, but there were many dried wounds on it. They believe Tu was killed because he threatened to disclose the alleged drug trading going on in the hotel, which is popular with officials, when he was trying to get overdue wages.
Tu’s father took his son’s body into the hotel lobby in protest.
At one point, his father threatened to set a gas tank alight if authorities tried to take the body away for cremation, which he said amounted to destroying evidence.
City residents rallied behind the family, with at least 10,000 residents gathering around the hotel to prevent the police from getting to the body. Bloggers and netizens put the figure as high as 50,000.
Police tried to get past them three times but failed. On Saturday, thousands of police, armed with batons and shields, marched into the streets to disperse protesters.
The China News Service yesterday gave a different version of the riot: “The body was carried away by a hearse to a funeral home for an autopsy ... all onlookers left the scene and the incident was settled ... through negotiations.”
It said a crowd that “did not understand the truth” gathered outside the hotel to watch Tu’s father place the body in the hotel.
“On June 20, a few gangsters used the opportunity to ... instigate the crowd to attack the firefighters and police officers that came to put out a fire lit by the gangsters.”
The city government website was inaccessible yesterday after it was hacked and turned into a forum by angry netizens on Saturday.
By yesterday evening, Shishou netizens were still supplying updates on the internet via blogs and forums, although the government tried to censor the information.
Photos posted on 21CN.com showed thousands of riot police in green uniforms marching into the streets, with some hitting protesters and arresting them. Police vehicles were either damaged or overturned and the ground was littered with broken glass bottles people had used to confront the police.
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