A young girl’s plea for justice following her father’s suspicious death in police custody reverberated through the Chinese Internet earlier this month, drawing tens of thousands of sympathetic responses and reposts on a Chinese blog portal in a matter of hours.
The 10-year-old child, calling herself “Helpless Yuan-Yuan,” posted an online message on the afternoon of Sunday, Aug. 14, asking readers to forward her message chronicling her father’s journey from a wildlife reserve to the morgue and to pressure the police into revealing the details surrounding his death.
“On the morning of Aug. 12, my father, Huang Guohui, accidentally trespassed onto the Datian Nature Reserve in Hainan Province,” she wrote. “After a quarrel, he was taken to a police station. Two hours later he died in the interrogation room, covered with wounds.”
Her post immediately stirred strong concern from other bloggers and her message was reposted by more than 200,000 users.
But just a few hours later, the “helpless Yuan-Yuan” blog account and its messages were deleted in a likely act of censorship to quell discourse over alleged police brutality.
The official police record claims that Huang “committed suicide in the interrogation room by hanging himself.”
Huang’s family has rejected that contention and maintains that the dubious circumstances surrounding the case point to foul play by the police.
After being informed of Huang’s death, his younger brother and father hurried to Datian to investigate the sudden news and saw that the feet, legs, forehead, and shoulders of Huang’s corpse were all bruised. The police offered the explanation that the marks were caused post-mortem.
Huang’s brother also found it suspicious that the police did not promptly provide a video of what actually happened.
“I could not see the front of the person’s face on the recording from the hidden camera, only part of the feet. When I arrived I asked to see the video and my brother’s remains but they delayed it for two days before letting me seeing it, so they surely had enough time to doctor a recording,” he recalls. “I suspect that they faked the recording.”
He also noted that all of Huang Guohui’s personal belongings, such as his money and a gold necklace, had been taken away.
When The Epoch Times contacted the police station, the officer on duty would only say that his chief was in a meeting and the facts were not clear. He said to contact the municipal police department, but somebody there said it was not a convenient time to accept an interview.
Huang Guohui’s brother has taken to cyberspace to voice his cause, even posting on behalf of his niece Yuan-Yuan’s blog.
But authorities have been doggedly pursuing Huang Guohui’s brother—both online and off—to stifle his outspoken criticism of what he believes is Huang’s mistreatment in police detention.
“At present I cannot use the computer and phone in the hotel. My whereabouts are being monitored and somebody will follow me when I go outside.”
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