3 police officers stand trial over death of female migrant worker
Print Edition
THREE policemen went on trial yesterday over the fatal beating of a female migrant worker, a case that sparked an online outcry about violence by those who enforce the law.
Zhou Xiuyun, 47, is said to have been assaulted at a construction site in Taiyuan in December as she tried to prevent officers taking away her husband and son over a dispute with security guards, according to media reports.
The three were taken to a local police station where it is alleged that Zhou was thrown to the ground while the two men were beaten up, they said. Zhou died the next day in hospital.
Footage showed policeman Wang Wenjun trampling on the hair of a dazed Zhou and stepping on her as she lay on the ground motionless.
Wang faced charges of intentional injury and abuse of power when he appeared at the Taiyuan Intermediate People’s Court in Taiyuan, capital of north China’s Shanxi Province, China Central Television reported.
His colleagues Guo Tiewei, who was charged with abuse of power, and Ren Haibo, who faces a charge of intentional injury, joined him in the dock, it said.
Zhou’s son, Wang Kuilin, told Xinhua news agency that he and his father had been working at the construction site and that their boss had delayed payment of 29,000 yuan (US$4,700) in salary. He said he went with two co-workers to the site to ask for the money but they were prevented from entering by security guards, at which point he phoned his parents and asked them to come to the site.
A brawl is said to have broken out when police arrived, with Guo and Ren also accused of breaking Zhou’s husband’s ribs.
The press office of the Taiyuan government said in January that the dispute started when guards stopped the workers as they weren’t wearing safety helmets and ID badges.
More than 200 people, including local lawmakers, political advisers and journalists, are present at the trial which is expected to last six days.
The case has again cast a shadow over Chinese law enforcement officers.
Earlier this month a police officer shot dead a man who scuffled with him and hit him with a baton at a train station in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang.
Last July, policeman Hu Ping was executed for shooting a pregnant woman dead in south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
In 2013 a farmer in the central province of Hunan was beaten to death by urban management officers for selling watermelons without a licence.
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