Chinese Officials: Dissident Hurt Himself after German Interview
July 28, 2006
Seven weeks after a brutal attack on the Chinese environmental activist Fu Xiancai, authorities in China say that preliminary results of the investigation into the assault show that Fui fell and then caused the injuries himself.
"There is no proof that the injuries were inflicted by an outside force, therefore the investigation is closed," the report by local police said. A forensic examination conducted by Chinese authorities claimed Fu, now paralyzed from the neck down, fell and then beat himself.
Fu was so badly beaten after giving an interview to German state broadcaster ARD that his spine was broken. In the May interview, Fu criticized the compensation offered by the government to residents displaced by the building of the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River.
Not above board
Fu's family and Human Rights organizations reject this explanation and have called the legitimacy of the investigation into question.
"The hospital told us that the police came and asked if my father was able to speak," the campaigner's son, Fu Bing said. "When the doctors said yes, the police went into his room and said they had to carry out their work. My father told me that they interrogated him for more than three hours. My father was very angry and cursed them."
Marianne Heuwagen of Human Rights Watch Germany, said the investigation was far from satisfactory.
"The explanation is a farce," she said. "Obviously the same authorities responsible for the attack have decided it didn't even take place"
A thorn in the side
Fu has long been a thorn in the side of the authorities. The environmental activist and critic of the Three Gorges Dam told German television that he, he, like many others, had not received compensation promised for residents having to relocate due to the building of the dam.
On June 8, shortly after giving the interview, Fu was attacked from behind with a heavy object, medical reports say. He will most likely spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.
Others are planning an appeal of the verdict. The group Human Rights in China is demanding an independent inquiry. One of ARD's regional director generals has lodged an official complaint with the Chinese Embassy in Berlin.