AS OUTRAGE MOUNTS IN CHINA OVER THE DEATH OF A DOCTOR WHO RAISED THE ALARM ABOUT THE NOVEL CORONAVIRUS, CHINESE SOCIAL MEDIA USERS ARE ACCUSING THE COMMUNIST GOVERNMENT OF A COVER UP.
Scramble to contain anger at virus ‘hero’ death
As outrage grows in China over the death of a whistleblower doctor, Chinese social media users are accusing the country’s communist government of a coverup.
Li Wenliang, a 34-yearold ophthalmologist, raised the alarm in late December about the novel coronavirus, long before Chinese health authorities disclosed its full threat. When he did so, it has emerged, he was silenced by police.
The doctor was reprimanded for his views, and made to sign a letter that said he “was making false comments.” Soon after, however, the outbreak had claimed dozens of lives, and China began containment efforts.
Li died in Wuhan Central Hospital Friday, from the same virus he had raised concerns about.
The doctor’s death triggered an outpouring of grief and anger on social media that appeared to overwhelm censors, with many contrasting the Li’s bravery with efforts by the Chinese state to censor news of the outbreak.
Selfies of the doctor on his sickbed were widely shared and the story of his death was viewed more than 1.5 billion times on the social media site Weibo. Some social media users called for Li to receive a state funeral.
While censors scrambled to erase discussion topics including “Wuhan owes Doctor Li Wenliang an apology” and “we want free speech,” they were unable to fully stem an avalanche of mourning tinged with uncomfortable questions for the regime.
Xi Jinping, the president, has cracked down on dissent since taking office in 2013. But even party stalwarts were caught up in the grieving. Chinese state media accounts, among the first to praise the late Li as a “whistleblower,” have since deleted their original posts from Twitter.
“Refusing to listen to your ‘whistling’, your country has stopped ticking, and your heart has stopped beating,” said Hong Bing, the Shanghai bureau chief of People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s official newspaper, in a post he also deleted.
Wang Gaofei, the chief executive of the Chinese microblogging site Weibo
— which regularly scrubs the internet on the request of censorship authorities — said “we should be more tolerant of people who post ‘untruthful information’ that aren’t malicious.”
“Do not forget how you feel now. Do not forget this anger. We must not let this happen again,” one commenter wrote on Weibo.
“The truth will always be treated as a rumour,” another wrote.
“If you are angry with what you see, stand up,” one wrote. “To the young people of this generation, the power of change is with you.”
The People’s Daily, the government mouthpiece, put out an article Friday saying China has entered a critical stage of epidemic prevention work. “The country needs solidarity more than ever to jointly win a battle that it cannot lose, so that its people can be protected against disaster and patients around the country can return to health.”
As news spread of his death, images of Li saturated Chinese social media: Li on a hospital bed, wearing a mask; a pencil sketch of the doctor; a photo of the letter he was forced to sign.
Beijing has tentatively responded to the rush of emotion from its 1.4 billion citizens, announcing the dispatch of a team to investigate the circumstances of Li’s arrest and death. Li’s family have also been offered $149,100 in compensation and $7,000 to cover funeral expenses, according to state media.
Still, many citizens were scornful. “Why did they start the investigation only after he died?” commented one person online. “We already knew that he was wronged for a long time, but why didn’t he receive any apologies before he closed his eyes?” Li became one of the most visible figures in the crisis after he said he had been reproached by Wuhan police last month for “spreading rumours” about the virus.
The ophthalmologist, who is survived by a fiveyear-old son and pregnant wife, urged fellow medics to wear protective gear in a social media post in which he warned about a cluster of flu-like cases at Wuhan Central Hospital.
His death was “a tragic reminder of how the Chinese authorities’ preoccupation with maintaining ‘stability’ drives it to suppress vital information about matters of public interest,” said Amnesty International.
An Alibaba executive wrote that he hopes China will legislate a whistleblower act, similar to that in the United States. “RIP. Our hero. Thank you,” Gao Xiaosong wrote.
Meanwhile the death toll from the coronavirus has reached 638 and upwards of 31,000 people have been infected.
WHISTLEBLOWER
DO NOT FORGET THIS ANGER. WE MUST NOT LET THIS HAPPEN AGAIN.