BAODING, CHINA—It might have been a fatal traffic accident like so many others that occur in China every day.
But when 20-year-old student Chen Xiaofeng was run down and killed on her college campus this month, it was different — and triggered a firestorm.
Chen was roller-blading with a friend at the University of Hebei, when a car collided with them and pitched them both sprawling and bleeding on to the pavement.
But the driver did not stop.
Instead, he sped on — corralled minutes later by campus security guards and angry students.
Undaunted, the driver drunkenly climbed out of his car, and confronted the crowd shouting, “Go ahead and sue me! My father is Li Gang!”
It was Oct. 16 — and those words have reverberated around China ever since.
Li Gang is a senior police official here in Baoding, about 140 kilometres south of Beijing.
His son’s loud, arrogant and public profession that his father’s power would trump any law enraged students here and, eventually, much of the country.
China’s Internet, home to some 400 million users, lit up with fury.
And many claimed the case is by no means isolated — but typifies the “arrogance” of children of Chinese officials who believe, in the words of one blogger, “that they can get away with any mistake or any crime they commit.”
Two weeks on, that anger is undiminished, and the government is concerned.
The words, “My father is Li Gang,” have become the single, most popular phrase on China’s Internet, one laced with derision about the base way in which China’s government often works, especially at the local level.
Meantime, Chen Xiaofeng is dead from her injuries; her friend is recovering in hospital; and Li Gang’s 22-year-old son, Li Qiming, is in custody awaiting completion of the investigation.
Read more at The Star
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