Chongqing suspends highhanded official who roughed up villager
An official in Chongqing has been suspended for manhandling a villager and making him bow, as well as for using inappropriate language, a county government said on Sunday.
Video footage went viral, showing a middle-aged man wearing a brown leather coat — later confirmed as Chen Yong, head of Wushan county’s Dachang township — harshly scolding an elderly man in shabby clothes, demanding that he admit fault for a perceived mistake and pressing his head to make him bow.
The elderly man was identified as Li Zelong, 60, a resident of Zhangshu village whose impoverished family qualified subsidies.
The county was concerned by the footage and asked discipline inspection authorities to review it, according to Wushan News, a website run by the county government.
The website, which confirmed the identities of Chen and Li, said the official was suspended from his post, and that the matter is under for government investigation by discipline inspectors.
Li, along with his disabled wife and 87-year-old mother had received 392 yuan ($59) as a subsidy for poor families, as well as 39,000 yuan from the township to renovate their home, according to a report by news website ThePaper.cn that citied an unnamed Wushan information official.
When asked about the money by county officials, Li said he had never received any welfare money, the report said.
According to unconfirmed reports, this led to a visit from Chen, who called Zhangshu residents to a meeting in which he confronted Li.
The video, filmed during the meeting, shows Chen scolding Li in the Chongqing dialect, saying, “You had 300 yuan as a subsidy for poor families, but why did you not admit it? Were you wrong?”
Li responds: wrong.”
Chen then demands that Li bow his head three times in apology, and roughly pushes the village’s head down while counting. “Wrong,