Chinese teen allegedly beaten to death in boot camp: report Beijing (AFP) Sept 30, 2010 A Chinese teenager was allegedly beaten to death at a boot camp for troubled youths that his mother had lured him to attend by promising he was going to study IT, state media said Thursday. Chen Shi, 16, died two days after enrolling in Beiteng School in Changsha, capital of central China's Hunan province, having been beaten up when he refused to run during training, the Beijing Times reported. According to witnesses, an instructor -- helped by two others -- beat him with a plastic pipe, handcuffs and a wooden baton when he refused to run. The incident comes amid controversy over China's hundreds of boot camps that aim to discipline unruly youths or wean them off web addictions. His mother Tang Yulin decided to enrol Chen to toughen him up because he was "afraid of hardship, had weak willpower and not enough self-confidence" and had failed a school exam, it said. They both travelled to Changsha from their home province of Jiangsu, in the east, after Tang told Chen he was going to study IT to persuade him to go. The school's admissions director had advised her to lie, saying 90 percent of students who attended were given a false reason for attending and the remaining 10 percent were "kidnapped" by their parents or school instructors. Tang paid 22,800 yuan (3,400 dollars) for half a year of attendance and went home after being told she would not be able to contact Chen directly but would have to use a teacher as an intermediary, the report said. Two days later, she received a call from the school saying Chen was in hospital in critical condition "possibly from sunstroke," and asking her and her husband to come immediately. They jumped on a plane but Chen died before they arrived. They managed to see his body -- which was covered in blood and bruises, while his underpants were torn. The report quoted police as saying that three people had been detained on suspicion of killing Chen. The school has now been closed amid disciplinary measures, the report said. The Changsha police and education bureau were not immediately available for comment. In August last year, the beating death of a teenage boy enrolled by his parents at an Internet addiction camp provoked outrage across the country.
Share This Article With Planet Earth
Related Links China News from SinoDaily.com
China says jailed dissident not right for Nobel Peace Prize Beijing (AFP) Sept 28, 2010 China said Tuesday the Nobel committee should not award its Peace Prize to a jailed Chinese intellectual seen as a contender, but declined to say whether honouring him would harm ties with Norway. Liu Xiaobo, a 54-year-old writer, was jailed for 11 years in December after co-authoring a bold call for democratic reform and is tipped as a favourite for the prize, the winner of which will be an ... read more |
|
The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2010 - SpaceDaily. AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement |