2011 Fuzhou bombings
Encyclopedia
The 2011 Fuzhou bombings (Simplified Chinese: 抚州市连环爆炸案; Pinyin
: Fǔzhōu shì liánhuán bàozhà àn) were three separate, synchronized explosions at government buildings in Fuzhou, Jiangxi
, China on the morning of 26 May 2011. At least three people died, and at least seven were injured. The perpetrator, 52-year-old Qian Mingqi, was initially reported possibly among those killed in the blasts, leading China's state run news agencies to label it a suicide bombing. The Jiangxi Provincial Public Security Department later confirmed that the suspect was killed at the scene.
The three explosions occurred between 9:18 and 9:45am CST (0100 UTC). The first blast occurred in a parking lot outside the offices of the city prosecutor, the second inside a district administration office, and the third explosion hit the city's food and drug agency. Two of the bombs were placed inside cars parked just outside of the buildings. The official Xinhua news agency
had posted a news article on its website saying the bombs were planted by a disgruntled farmer who was dissatisfied with the outcome of a court case, but by 1pm on the day of the bombing the article had been removed from the site
.
, and the authorities paid him only half of that for compensation. Because of the lack of compensation, he posted slogans to resist the demolition. According to his neighbors, Qian's wife was then hung upside down by the demolition team. She died a few years later from gall bladder disease. From the police report of the Fuzhou Police, Qian's wife has been dead for several years.
After the ordeal he then discovered the land seized from him to make a highway was actually not used. By 2002 Qian began petitioning in Fuzhou and Beijing's government offices. Unable to find redress, he reportedly taught himself to use the internet, and cultivate a presence on various blogging platforms, hoping to get the attention of human rights defenders, academics, lawyers, reporters, and police. Not only did Qian fail to elicit the attention of anyone who might help him, but he became aware of other individuals who had similarly had their homes demolished. In one of his blog he accused Linchuan district party cadre of embezzling 10 million yuan in compensation funds after demolishing his house and that of seven other families. Qian had two sons and one daughter.
Bombings, especially ones of this sophistication, are rare in China, but this is the second in a month. Earlier in May 2011 in north-west Gansu province a "petrol bomb" was set off outside a bank by a former employee. There are very few ways for the Chinese people to bring forward what they see as a wrong they have suffered, and therefore, as the BBC
's Michael Bristow states, "some Chinese people occasionally take out their frustration in attacks like this."
site and the 2002 demolitions, Qian was fed up. The weibo posts state "Ten years of seeking redress resulted in nothing," and "I was forced to step onto a road I didn't want to step on due to the loss of my newly built house, which was illegally demolished...my total loss was near to RMB two million Yuan."
who wrote on Sina.com
's weibo
(microblogging
) service, Sina Weibo
, that his home had been demolished illegally.
He wrote the last statement in his weibo: "I want to learn from Dong Cunrui
[a People's Liberation Army soldier who carried an explosive package and blew up a bunker in 1948] and I hope I can receive the public's support and attention."
The bombs were detonated by Qian Mingqi, aged 52 at the time, and was killed in the explosions. Two victims are security guards of the Linchuan district government building, Xu Yingfu and
He Haigen.
TIME Magazine reported:
The explosion blew most of the windows out of the local prosecutor's office, an eight story building, and at least ten cars were destroyed.
. Officials from the city were supposed to hold a news conference about the bombings, but it was canceled at the last minute, further leading to the accusations of censorship.
s, weibo
and Twitter
users expressed sympathy for the Qian Mingqi, with some calling him a "hero", and comparing him to Yang Jia
, who killed Shanghai
policemen after allegedly suffering mistreatment. Following the bombings, Qian's weibo page had attracted some 30,000 followers, before being shut down by Sina administrators. The Christian Science Monitor reported that most of the online commentators regarded Qian's actions not as a terrorist attack, but as "righteous vengeance:" "The flood of supportive comments online since his death is a sign of widespread public frustration at the government's disdain for ordinary citizens." VOA reported on 27 May that the death of Qian has sound an alarm bell for Chinese government, and one blogger has said on his Twitter account:"...history will always remember Qian."
In an interview, Li Chengpeng, one of china's most popular and influential bloggers, said "Qian was no Bin Laden, he was one of the weak, he had no way to express himself nor defend his rights."
The Associated Press explained the outpouring of sympathy for Qian by observing that many citizens could relate to his tale of victimization at the hands of authorities, and to his frustration at the lack of channels to seek redress.
"Qian’s grievances resonate widely in China, where land disputes have mushroomed amid a fast-paced economic boom. Standoffs between tenants and developers often turn violent, with homeowners beaten by thugs or even crushed by bulldozers. Other tenants have set themselves on fire rather than face eviction."
The state-run Global Times
newspaper issued a report after the bombings calling for a condemnation of the violence, but also proposed that more needed to be done to understand why individuals like Qian are occasionally driven to lash out. The article quoted Mao Shoulong, a professor of public policy at Renmin University of China
, saying that while extreme actions to seek redress should not be encouraged in any way, "At the same time, authorities should learn to open smoother channels for the public to file their complaints before problems turn into confrontations and then violence."
"Despite enormous attention being paid to the cause of the attack, we must lament the deaths of innocent people whose families and friends are now suffering...This horrendous act, no matter its origin, deserves the most vehement condemnation," the author said in one article with title "Horrendous attacks deserve public condemnation" in the observer column of the Global Times.
Pinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...
: Fǔzhōu shì liánhuán bàozhà àn) were three separate, synchronized explosions at government buildings in Fuzhou, Jiangxi
Fuzhou, Jiangxi
Fuzhou is a prefecture-level city in northeastern Jiangxi province, People's Republic of China.It is located to the south of the provincial capital Nanchang. Its total area is 18,800 km². Its population is 3,700,000 people...
, China on the morning of 26 May 2011. At least three people died, and at least seven were injured. The perpetrator, 52-year-old Qian Mingqi, was initially reported possibly among those killed in the blasts, leading China's state run news agencies to label it a suicide bombing. The Jiangxi Provincial Public Security Department later confirmed that the suspect was killed at the scene.
The three explosions occurred between 9:18 and 9:45am CST (0100 UTC). The first blast occurred in a parking lot outside the offices of the city prosecutor, the second inside a district administration office, and the third explosion hit the city's food and drug agency. Two of the bombs were placed inside cars parked just outside of the buildings. The official Xinhua news agency
Xinhua News Agency
The Xinhua News Agency is the official press agency of the government of the People's Republic of China and the biggest center for collecting information and press conferences in the PRC. It is the largest news agency in the PRC, ahead of the China News Service...
had posted a news article on its website saying the bombs were planted by a disgruntled farmer who was dissatisfied with the outcome of a court case, but by 1pm on the day of the bombing the article had been removed from the site
Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China
Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China is conducted under a wide variety of laws and administrative regulations. There are no specific laws or regulations which the censorship follows...
.
Background
In 1995 Qian Mingqi's home was demolished by government authorities to make way for a highway. He then saved up enough money to build a second home, which was also shattered by a second forced demolition. His second house cost about 500,000 yuanChinese yuan
The yuan is the base unit of a number of modern Chinese currencies. The yuan is the primary unit of account of the Renminbi.A yuán is also known colloquially as a kuài . One yuán is divided into 10 jiǎo or colloquially máo...
, and the authorities paid him only half of that for compensation. Because of the lack of compensation, he posted slogans to resist the demolition. According to his neighbors, Qian's wife was then hung upside down by the demolition team. She died a few years later from gall bladder disease. From the police report of the Fuzhou Police, Qian's wife has been dead for several years.
After the ordeal he then discovered the land seized from him to make a highway was actually not used. By 2002 Qian began petitioning in Fuzhou and Beijing's government offices. Unable to find redress, he reportedly taught himself to use the internet, and cultivate a presence on various blogging platforms, hoping to get the attention of human rights defenders, academics, lawyers, reporters, and police. Not only did Qian fail to elicit the attention of anyone who might help him, but he became aware of other individuals who had similarly had their homes demolished. In one of his blog he accused Linchuan district party cadre of embezzling 10 million yuan in compensation funds after demolishing his house and that of seven other families. Qian had two sons and one daughter.
Bombings, especially ones of this sophistication, are rare in China, but this is the second in a month. Earlier in May 2011 in north-west Gansu province a "petrol bomb" was set off outside a bank by a former employee. There are very few ways for the Chinese people to bring forward what they see as a wrong they have suffered, and therefore, as the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
's Michael Bristow states, "some Chinese people occasionally take out their frustration in attacks like this."
Incident
According to Mingqi's Sina WeiboSina Weibo
Sina Weibo is a Chinese microblogging website. Akin to a hybrid of Twitter and Facebook, it is one of the most popular sites in China, in use by well over 30% of Internet users, with a similar market penetration that Twitter has established in the USA...
site and the 2002 demolitions, Qian was fed up. The weibo posts state "Ten years of seeking redress resulted in nothing," and "I was forced to step onto a road I didn't want to step on due to the loss of my newly built house, which was illegally demolished...my total loss was near to RMB two million Yuan."
who wrote on Sina.com
Sina.com
SINA is an online media company for China and Chinese communities around the world. SINA operates four major business lines: Sina Weibo, SINA Mobile, SINA Online, and SINA.net. SINA has over 100 million registered users worldwide...
's weibo
Microblogging in China
Weibo is the Chinese word for "microblog". It usually refers to one or all of the China-based microblogging services, or one's account at these services.-Terms:...
(microblogging
Microblogging
Microblogging is a broadcast medium in the form of blogging. A microblog differs from a traditional blog in that its content is typically smaller in both actual and aggregate file size...
) service, Sina Weibo
Sina Weibo
Sina Weibo is a Chinese microblogging website. Akin to a hybrid of Twitter and Facebook, it is one of the most popular sites in China, in use by well over 30% of Internet users, with a similar market penetration that Twitter has established in the USA...
, that his home had been demolished illegally.
He wrote the last statement in his weibo: "I want to learn from Dong Cunrui
Dong Cunrui
Dong Cunrui was a Chinese Communist soldier in the People's Liberation Army during the Chinese Civil War who blew himself up in order to destroy a Kuomintang bunker guarding to approach to an important bridge in Longhua County. Under heavy fire, he reached the bunker, but there was no place to...
[a People's Liberation Army soldier who carried an explosive package and blew up a bunker in 1948] and I hope I can receive the public's support and attention."
The bombs were detonated by Qian Mingqi, aged 52 at the time, and was killed in the explosions. Two victims are security guards of the Linchuan district government building, Xu Yingfu and
He Haigen.
TIME Magazine reported:
"The first bomb, in a vehicle parked inside the gate of the local prosecutor's office, went off at about 9:15 a.m., according to local media reports. A second bomb detonated at 9:30 a.m. at a district government office, and a third bomb, believed to be a car bomb like the first, went off at 9:45 a.m. outside a local office of the State Food and Drug Administration."
The explosion blew most of the windows out of the local prosecutor's office, an eight story building, and at least ten cars were destroyed.
Censorship
Local journalists in Fuzhou stated that the Chinese police confiscated record-taking materials and deleted photographs from cameras. An early report posted on the official Xinhua News site was later removed from the websiteInternet censorship in the People's Republic of China
Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China is conducted under a wide variety of laws and administrative regulations. There are no specific laws or regulations which the censorship follows...
. Officials from the city were supposed to hold a news conference about the bombings, but it was canceled at the last minute, further leading to the accusations of censorship.
Response
Many Chinese bloggerBlog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
s, weibo
Microblogging in China
Weibo is the Chinese word for "microblog". It usually refers to one or all of the China-based microblogging services, or one's account at these services.-Terms:...
and Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
users expressed sympathy for the Qian Mingqi, with some calling him a "hero", and comparing him to Yang Jia
Yang Jia
Yang Jia Yang Jia Yang Jia (Chinese: 陽甲, born Zi He (Chinese: 子和), was a Shang Dynasty King of China.In the Records of the Grand Historian he was listed by Sima Qian as the eighteenth Shang king, succeeding his father's cousin Nen Geng (Chinese: 南庚). He was enthroned in the year of Renxu (Chinese:...
, who killed Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
policemen after allegedly suffering mistreatment. Following the bombings, Qian's weibo page had attracted some 30,000 followers, before being shut down by Sina administrators. The Christian Science Monitor reported that most of the online commentators regarded Qian's actions not as a terrorist attack, but as "righteous vengeance:" "The flood of supportive comments online since his death is a sign of widespread public frustration at the government's disdain for ordinary citizens." VOA reported on 27 May that the death of Qian has sound an alarm bell for Chinese government, and one blogger has said on his Twitter account:"...history will always remember Qian."
In an interview, Li Chengpeng, one of china's most popular and influential bloggers, said "Qian was no Bin Laden, he was one of the weak, he had no way to express himself nor defend his rights."
The Associated Press explained the outpouring of sympathy for Qian by observing that many citizens could relate to his tale of victimization at the hands of authorities, and to his frustration at the lack of channels to seek redress.
"Qian’s grievances resonate widely in China, where land disputes have mushroomed amid a fast-paced economic boom. Standoffs between tenants and developers often turn violent, with homeowners beaten by thugs or even crushed by bulldozers. Other tenants have set themselves on fire rather than face eviction."
The state-run Global Times
Global Times
The Global Times is a daily Chinese tabloid under the auspices of the official Chinese Communist Party newspaper, the People's Daily, focusing on international issues...
newspaper issued a report after the bombings calling for a condemnation of the violence, but also proposed that more needed to be done to understand why individuals like Qian are occasionally driven to lash out. The article quoted Mao Shoulong, a professor of public policy at Renmin University of China
Renmin University of China
Renmin University of China; RUC, also known as People's University of China , colloquially Renda , is a major research university in Haidian District, Beijing, China. Its campus neighbors those of Peking University and Tsinghua University....
, saying that while extreme actions to seek redress should not be encouraged in any way, "At the same time, authorities should learn to open smoother channels for the public to file their complaints before problems turn into confrontations and then violence."
"Despite enormous attention being paid to the cause of the attack, we must lament the deaths of innocent people whose families and friends are now suffering...This horrendous act, no matter its origin, deserves the most vehement condemnation," the author said in one article with title "Horrendous attacks deserve public condemnation" in the observer column of the Global Times.
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