Chinese police blocked access to several collapsed schools on Thursday as distraught parents attempted to hold mourning ceremonies for their dead children a month after the Sichuan earthquake.
The clampdown in Dujiangyuan and Juyuan came amid a tightening of media controls, as domestic journalists were instructed to focus on upbeat stories about the relief effort and foreign reporters were denied entry to the area.
”Many of the parents wanted to mourn at school today [Thursday] but we could not get in. There are so many police, hundreds of them, not just around the school but everywhere on the street,” said one of the parents near Juyuan middle school, Liu Rongjie. ”We want justice, but we also need spiritual and financial support. Hundreds of students and teachers died there. It’s heartbreakingly sad.”
The restrictions are a step back from the first two weeks after the May 12 earthquake, when the government was widely praised for opening the disaster area to journalists, volunteers and aid workers.
The tightening reflects political concerns that the destroyed schools could become a focus for anti-government sentiment. Thousands of children died when their classrooms were reduced to rubble even though surrounding buildings remained standing. This has prompted allegations of shoddy construction, official corruption and poor safety oversight.
Central government investigation teams have visited the sites, but will not release their findings until next Friday at the earliest.
Parents have staged demonstrations amid the debris of middle schools in Juyuan and Dujiangyuan and other areas, demanding an investigation, punishment for wrongdoing and compensation. Both towns are now out of bounds for foreign reporters, at least seven of whom have been temporarily detained in the past week by police. Others have been stopped at checkpoints or removed from the towns.
On Thursday a national official denied China was tightening up on media coverage in the disaster zone. ”Our open attitude has not changed,” said Wang Guoqing, vice-director of the state council’s news division. ”We will soon host the Olympics and even more reporters will come. Our door is open. It will not close.”
The discrepancy with the situation on the ground may partly reflect some local officials’ efforts at self-preservation. Although Dujiangyuan and Juyuan are closed to reporters, damaged schools in other areas, such as Beichuan and Mianzhu, are still open. A provincial government official said the restrictions were not ordered by higher authorities. ”The local officials did not inform us about this, they just decided and operated on their own,” said an official with the provincial foreign affairs department. ”I am angry and I’ve reported this to my superiors.”
But state propaganda officials have reportedly tried to direct domestic coverage away from the school issue. ”Conditions are relatively good, but we are still not completely free to report,” said a photojournalist from Guangdong province, who did not want his name published. ”We are supposed to be speaking with one voice and concentrating on heartwarming stories.”
News portals, which previously ran prominent stories about the structural quality of collapsed schools, are now avoiding the topic or running reports that appear to affirm the correct implementation of building standards.
The nation’s main focus is on reconstruction. Temporary homes are being built for many of the five million displaced people and entire towns will be rebuilt. Ninety-five percent of the buildings in Wenchuan county, near the epicentre, have been destroyed or condemned. – guardian.co.uk