China is suppressing coverage of deadly attacks. Some people are complaining online

Beijing (AP) – At the end of last month, a car hit the children According to a Chinese news report, near a primary school in the outer part of Beijing.

A police statement with four sentences, a 35 -year -old male driver’s car’s “inappropriate work” because of the pedestrians, he said. He didn’t say that school or victims contained children. Photos showing that half dozen people lying on the street were rubbed China’s closely controlled internet.

“We need reality,” he said in Weibo, a leading social media platform similar to X.

Ruling communist party Expanded Information Control Since the leader Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, he saw him as a way to prevent unrest. More and more subjects from negative news About the economy According to LGBTQ+ identity, it has been exposed to some kind of censorship. In the last half year, the mass attacks that a person killed or injured more than one person with a vehicle or knife seems to have been added to the list.

Some people in China are withdrawn, and after the drivers hit the pedestrians, they complain about online in at least two cases in recent months.

Experts, the government may be trying to prevent imitation crimes, he said. Another motivation may be local authorities who want to cover up when they cannot.

A fatal case in November led to the government’s reaction

It was there an attack In the autumn last autumn, but considering the lack of information, it is difficult to measure whether they are increasing.

The attacks were not always a taboo subject. Authorities in the past Published basic details. Typically, the aggressive is often defined that he has revealed his anger on society on financial losses.

This seems to have changed A particularly terrible case In November, he killed 35 people in Zhuhai in South China. Authorities said the driver was upset about the divorce agreement. Order came from the top – From Xi – take steps to prevent similar attacks.

A SUV after eight days Shoot the students To reach a primary school in Hunan. The number of wounded – 30 children and adults – were not announced to the public until almost a month. The driver was convicted.

Since then, the compression on the information has been further tense. In April, reports wandered online that a car entered people outside a primary school in Jinhua City. At least three state state media organizations published stories – but rapidly removed. The authorities have not published any information.

Censorship makes some people hungry for information

Twelve days later, a fast -moving car turned into a street and people at a bus stop in Tengzhou, east of China.

The authorities didn’t say anything. The videos of the May 4 accident were removed from social media. The next day, the online criticism of silence began to emerge. People said the police should publish basic information such as the identity of the driver and the number of losses. A few people defended the police, saying he was on a holiday.

Hu Xijin, the former editor of a state newspaper, said, “If a few precedents are determined and more local government in the future are followed in this way, the rules of information may not be approved and endangered.

Stanford University Professor Jennifer Pan, who investigated how political censorship and knowledge manipulation works in the digital age, said that local governments wanted to cover up the news that reflects themselves or their policies. The central government sometimes has other priorities.

“When the problem attracts attention despite local censorship efforts, the center has an incentive to protect the legitimacy of the general system through the underlying problems and the underlying problems, and the center.

Details came out 48 hours after the accident. A state media report, six people died and no deliberate attack: the driver said he was drunk.

Police responds with fast expressions that are short in details

Since then, local authorities seem to be adopting a new approach in at least two cases in Beijing: quickly prepare a report with inadequate details.

Eleven days after the drunk driving case, a car hit people in Beijing on May 15 except for an elementary school. Beijing traffic police published a report within a few hours, but the location was close to a school, he said. A car said that only four people were injured and the driver was detained when he besieged pedestrians in Jian’an West Road.

The authorities applied a closure of information that evening. The police were deployed along the way and warned people in a volunteer, nearby housing compound not to talk to foreigners.

Six weeks later, on June 26, he said he shot a car in Miyun in Miyun, northwest of the center of Beijing, online. Caixin, a well -taken media organization, reached the shop owners who said that the children were shot, and a hospital that confirms that some children’s victims are treating their victims. It remains unclear whether it is a deliberate action.

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Associated Press journalist Emily Wang Fujiyama contributed to this story.