Yang Jia, A New Kind of Chinese Hero

Many Chinese are sympathetic to Yang Jia, a 28-year-old unemployed man, after the Chinese daily Xinhua's report of Yang's earlier rejected claim for psychological damage and the Southern Weekend magazine’s sympathetic article which theorized what could turned a quiet young man into a killer.

Yang Jia was angered by the six-hour interrogation he underwent regarding an unlicensed bicycle on October 15, 2007. He demanded compensation from the police and sued the officers for 10,000 yuan ($1,464) for psychological damage. His claim was rejected by the local security authorities. The bureau claims to have police station video footage showed the man hurling insults at officers when questioned over the theft - which obviously they will never show, just claim to possess. Mr Yang is rumored to have been badly beaten by police.

According to a police statement, on July 1, 2008, the anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, Yang went to the gate of the police station, threw eight Molotov cocktails at the entrance, injured a security guard, forced his way into the building and stabbed various police officers, killing six and injuring three police as well as a security guard in order to exact revenge for the treatment he had been subjected to by the local police.

He was apprehended at the scene, charged with premeditated murder, and subsequently declared "not insane." But Liu Xiaoyuan, a Beijing attorney who has been following the case, said there was no indication that a qualified medical team had ever examined Yang.

On August 26, 2008, the Shanghai No. 2 People's Intermediate Court sentenced Yang Jia to death after finding him guilty of premeditated murder. His trial was conducted in a closed courtroom. Over a dozen people gathered outside the "People’s" Court, but were not permitted to hear the verdict being handed down. "If you and I were Yang Jia, we could be sentenced under such namely legal but unclear ways," said one posting on a lawyer's blog. "Why is this so secret? The government should make this more open so justice can be served," one man outside the court house told Reuters. "Now people are wondering whether this trial was conducted fairly or not." Lawyers handling the case refused comment. Court officials refused comment. Prosecutors said Yang confessed to the killings.

Yang’s father said his son must "have been greatly wronged." He said he hoped the practically certain death sentence would help the Chinese legal system change.

The doubt surrounding the fairness of the trial was covered in an editorial last month in The Beijing News. It called for Yang's appointed lawyer Xie Youming to drop the case, as he is also legal adviser for Shanghai's Zhabei district, which oversees the police station where the attack occurred. An application by two Beijing-based lawyers to represent Yang at his father's request was rejected. Xie is refusing to take phone calls from the media, a colleague at Shanghai's Mingjiang Law Firm said. The "People's" Intermediate Court, where the trial was held, wouldn't comment. The Shanghai court failed to place notice of the trial date on its Web site, which according to the law should be done three days in advance.

Yang has become a symbol for the growing number of people who are attacking Chinese police in protest of the state brutality. He has been compared to Wu Song, a hero in Chinese literature who killed a tiger with his bare hands.

A blogger, Zi Bingyue, wrote: "Yang Jia is not bad. He has no previous criminal record. On the contrary, he has a strong sense of the law. He gave seats to older people on the bus and carried luggage for weak travelers."

Another blogger, Qing Feng, wrote that Yang was ground down by the reality of being unemployed in China. "He would have self-destructed one way or another since he has lost hope. He has no job, no degree, no income, no background, no relationship or normal family."

Blogs mentioning Yang Jia are being deleted by censors. One blogger wrote: "They have a guilty conscience, so all the websites closed the comment function for this news. This is red terror."

The China Daily reports that during the month of August, prosecutors issued arrest warrants for four suspects who allegedly assaulted police in Beijing, another person was detained when he threatened police with a 20-cm knife after his wife was cited for a traffic violation, another person took a 40-cm knife to the urban administration office after officers confiscated watermelons he had been selling without a permit, and two other suspects beat up an officer when they resisted a summons to the police station.

One message left on Yang’s MySpace page read: "You have done what most people want to do, but do not have enough courage to do."

Sources:

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-07/08/content_6825766.htm
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/09/01/asia/AS-China-Knife-Attack.php
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-09/01/content_6987330.htm
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/suncommentary/la-fg-china2-2008sep02,0,1985858.story
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/09/01/speedy-trail-and-death-sentence-for-accused-cop-killer/?mod=googlenews_wsj
http://telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/2627001/Chinese-cop-killer-becomes-internet-hero.html http://shanghaiist.com/2008/08/30/more_on_the_trial_of_accused_cop_ki.php

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