Page 115 - Feasibility Study of New Media Technology on Constructing Online Public Sphere

Chapter 5. The Sun Zhigang incident

an online public letter criticising the restrictions. Some reports openly questioned the

evidence at trial, arguing that Sun’s injuries could not have been merely caused by the
defendants’ fists, and the procuratorate charged that Sun had already been beaten by the
police before he arrived at the detention centre. Similarly, online media wondered why
a videotape of the beatings that was said to exist was never submitted as evidence.

5.2.4 The result of the social campaign – a change in the legal regulation
The online and offline public participation in relation to the Sun Zhigang case

marks the first successful social campaign since the internet was introduced in China.
On 6 June, He Weifang, a well-known jurist, was invited by Qiangguo Forum (a
BBS belonging to People’s Daily Online) to discuss the Sun case for nearly two hours
with internet users around the world (Zeng, 2008). He expressed appreciation for the

internet users’ passion and concern about the Sun case on Qiangguo Forum and indicat-
ed that their activities not only showed the public’s awareness of social improvement
and legal development, but also might lead to the modification of the C&R system.
On 11 June, the online portal zaobao.com owned by the Singaporean Union

Morning Post published an article titled ‘The sound of Dengwen Drum [meaning public
opinion] on the internet’ (Lu, 2003), which stated that:
‘In China’s cyberspace, the virtual Dengwen Drum was beaten loudly by thou-
sands of internet users in recent days. The cause is a young man’s death in Yamen

(an ancient expression for an official department)’ (ibid, N.P.).
The author claimed that the public opinion formed by Chinese internet users re-
garding the Sun case had already been delivered to government leaders, which showed
the capability of ‘Shangda Tianting’ of the new media. To the surprise of many, on 18
15
June, former Prime Minister Wen Jiabao chaired a State Council executive meeting,
which approved in principle ‘Measures of Aid and Management of Urban Vagrants and
Beggars without Life Support (draft)’ (Yuan, 2003). On June 19, Southern Weekly pub-
lished a review article titled ‘To achieve social justice, even face the end of the world’,

which represented the strongest voice for abolishing the unfair system (Lian and Han,

15 ‘Shangda Tianting’ literally means citizens’ opinions directly reaching the top leaders’ ears.

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