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New facts on good Samaritan tests belief
By Ni Tao |
January 21, 2012, Saturday
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Print Edition
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LAST year saw a spike in cases of "good Samaritans" wronged by the ungrateful, indeed malicious, people they had helped.
As a result, many swear they won't help the needy, lest they nurse a viper in their bosom and find themselves accused of causing injury. In defending their skepticism about virtue begetting virtue, they point to the case of Peng Yu that is widely blamed for the dwindling ranks of good Samaritans.
Peng, 26, claimed to help up a 64-year-old woman surnamed Xu who appeared to be jostled off a bus while trying to get on in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, in late 2006. Peng then accompanied the woman, who suffered a fractured hip bone, to hospital and paid 200 yuan (US$23) for the medical care, which he insisted he did on compassionate grounds.
However, Xu's family accused him of causing her fall and sued for compensation. Without sufficient evidence, he was found guilty as charged and ordered to pay 45,000 yuan in compensation.
The verdict sparked a furor. Xu's lawsuit certainly wasn't helped by the fact that her son was a local police officer, prompting speculation that he managed to falsify "proof" to establish Peng's culpability.
The court also made a mockery of itself by ruling that "Peng had no reason to foot Xu's medical bill unless he was the culprit."
A barrage of criticism of the trial helped acquit Peng in the court of public opinion. He was quickly turned into an iconic tragic hero. In the ensuing five years, his case was repeatedly cited as justification for moral cynicism, which climaxed when a 2-year-old toddler named Yue Yue was twice run over late last year and a dozen pedestrians passed by without stopping to help.
Perhaps alarmed by the frequency with which people resort to the Peng Yu case as an excuse for their moral apathy, Party newspapers last year opined that Peng's case is an isolated event, thus it doesn't justify people assuming the worst and gawking when they see others in need.
In a dramatic twist of the case, a Xinhua-affiliated news magazine recently publicized eye-popping new "facts" and "revelations." Nanjing's legal chief Liu Zhiwei told the latest issue of Liaowang (Outlook) magazine that the Peng Yu case was grossly exaggerated and over-cited. It was wrongly construed as the watershed marking a general moral decline.
More astoundingly, he added that Peng had recently admitted to knocking down Xu. The two had reconciled after mediation, but requested that their decision be kept a secret, he said.
Exactly how many would buy such a story? I guess few, given the online reaction. Many netizens questioned the timing of the expose, and were dismissive of the official remarks as a long overdue and ham-fisted attempt to revive social trust.
After remaining eerily silent over the brouhaha surrounding the Peng Yu case, authorities have finally decided to intervene. But this is too little, too late. Where were they when bitter controversy was raging over the case?
If the official "truth" is to be believed, that Peng wasn't a wronged good Samaritan and Xu wasn't a blackmailer, the price of the delayed "truth" is enormous. Enough damage has been done in the intervening years. Silence didn't quell controversy. It fueled it.
True, the plaintiff and defendant signed a confidentiality agreement. Yet it's worth asking if violating that agreement would suit them better, in particular the much-maligned old lady.
The combined ineptitude of Nanjing police and judges created the "good Samaritan" uproar in the first place. The blind commitment to suppressing the "truth" compounded their mistake. In the years that followed, old women like Xu were invariably presumed guilty when they filed suit against their helpers, whereas the latter were given the benefit of the doubt.
An important yet unlearned lesson of the Peng Yu case is that in handling high-profile cases of moral consequence, how to balance the public's right to know and the desire for confidentiality of the parties in dispute will be a test of official wisdom.
Nanjing authorities utterly failed that test. Instead of blaming the public for being cynical, they should've taken the oxygen out of misinformation and rumor mongering, by publicizing their "truth" a lot earlier.
As a result, many swear they won't help the needy, lest they nurse a viper in their bosom and find themselves accused of causing injury. In defending their skepticism about virtue begetting virtue, they point to the case of Peng Yu that is widely blamed for the dwindling ranks of good Samaritans.
Peng, 26, claimed to help up a 64-year-old woman surnamed Xu who appeared to be jostled off a bus while trying to get on in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, in late 2006. Peng then accompanied the woman, who suffered a fractured hip bone, to hospital and paid 200 yuan (US$23) for the medical care, which he insisted he did on compassionate grounds.
However, Xu's family accused him of causing her fall and sued for compensation. Without sufficient evidence, he was found guilty as charged and ordered to pay 45,000 yuan in compensation.
The verdict sparked a furor. Xu's lawsuit certainly wasn't helped by the fact that her son was a local police officer, prompting speculation that he managed to falsify "proof" to establish Peng's culpability.
The court also made a mockery of itself by ruling that "Peng had no reason to foot Xu's medical bill unless he was the culprit."
A barrage of criticism of the trial helped acquit Peng in the court of public opinion. He was quickly turned into an iconic tragic hero. In the ensuing five years, his case was repeatedly cited as justification for moral cynicism, which climaxed when a 2-year-old toddler named Yue Yue was twice run over late last year and a dozen pedestrians passed by without stopping to help.
Perhaps alarmed by the frequency with which people resort to the Peng Yu case as an excuse for their moral apathy, Party newspapers last year opined that Peng's case is an isolated event, thus it doesn't justify people assuming the worst and gawking when they see others in need.
In a dramatic twist of the case, a Xinhua-affiliated news magazine recently publicized eye-popping new "facts" and "revelations." Nanjing's legal chief Liu Zhiwei told the latest issue of Liaowang (Outlook) magazine that the Peng Yu case was grossly exaggerated and over-cited. It was wrongly construed as the watershed marking a general moral decline.
More astoundingly, he added that Peng had recently admitted to knocking down Xu. The two had reconciled after mediation, but requested that their decision be kept a secret, he said.
Exactly how many would buy such a story? I guess few, given the online reaction. Many netizens questioned the timing of the expose, and were dismissive of the official remarks as a long overdue and ham-fisted attempt to revive social trust.
After remaining eerily silent over the brouhaha surrounding the Peng Yu case, authorities have finally decided to intervene. But this is too little, too late. Where were they when bitter controversy was raging over the case?
If the official "truth" is to be believed, that Peng wasn't a wronged good Samaritan and Xu wasn't a blackmailer, the price of the delayed "truth" is enormous. Enough damage has been done in the intervening years. Silence didn't quell controversy. It fueled it.
True, the plaintiff and defendant signed a confidentiality agreement. Yet it's worth asking if violating that agreement would suit them better, in particular the much-maligned old lady.
The combined ineptitude of Nanjing police and judges created the "good Samaritan" uproar in the first place. The blind commitment to suppressing the "truth" compounded their mistake. In the years that followed, old women like Xu were invariably presumed guilty when they filed suit against their helpers, whereas the latter were given the benefit of the doubt.
An important yet unlearned lesson of the Peng Yu case is that in handling high-profile cases of moral consequence, how to balance the public's right to know and the desire for confidentiality of the parties in dispute will be a test of official wisdom.
Nanjing authorities utterly failed that test. Instead of blaming the public for being cynical, they should've taken the oxygen out of misinformation and rumor mongering, by publicizing their "truth" a lot earlier.
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