China struggles to suppress debate around Lei Yang case and police brutality

Beijing: Lei Yang left home on the night of May 7 to meet relatives at the airport who had travelled to Beijing to meet his newborn daughter for the first time.

Instead, the 29-year-old environmental researcher ended up dead, caught up in what police say was an undercover sting on an illegal brothel masquerading as a foot massage parlour.

Lei Yang, who died in suspicious circumstances in police custody in May of this year.

Lei, police say, had attempted to run, resisted arrest and had to be "forcibly restrained". Less than two hours later, he was declared dead, with police initially saying he had suffered a "heart attack".

Tellingly, in a country where the law enforcement, judiciary and media are all directly controlled by the government, the police's official account of events was met with widespread disbelief.

Lei Yang's wife speaks to China Central Television after the case went viral in May.

The initial claims that Lei had suffered a heart attack were swiftly proven untrue, with an autopsy showing he had suffocated on his own vomit. Five police officers involved were detained pending a formal investigation.

Last Friday, more than six months after Lei's death, prosecutors said they had concluded their investigation and would not press criminal charges against the five officers despite also finding they had used excessive force, failed to call for medical help in time and colluded to cover up the circumstances around Lei's death.

"The circumstances of the criminality were slight and they were able to acknowledge and repent their crimes," the prosecutors' office said in a lengthy statement of its findings.

But Lei's death, and the absolution of police, has proven a lightning rod for debate, almost none of it related to whether he had in fact taken an amorous and ultimately fatal detour on his way to the airport.

As a masters graduate from the prestigious Renmin University in Beijing, Lei's case had particular resonance in demonstrating how even middle-class Chinese remain vulnerable to abuses of power from those in authority.

This time round, the controlled timing of the announcement meant authorities could better attempt to monitor and dampen online discussion. Propaganda authorities issued directives prohibiting domestic news outlets from carrying the story, while online censors blocked searches for "Lei Yang case" on Chinese search engines and Weibo, the popular Twitter-like microblogging service.

"The people are paying great attention to this case because they fear it could happen to them next," said Ding Xikui, a lawyer who has worked on prominent human rights cases. "The case is not about coming down with a heavy sentence, it's about the transparency of the process. It's about the right to know."

Despite efforts to stymie the online debate, thousands signed petitions protesting the dropping of charges against the five police officers responsible for Lei's death. The most prominent of these include two online petitions circulated through university alumni networks, including those of Renmin University but also extending to alumni at other major universities across several Chinese cities.

The petition notes that the prosecution's investigations found the five police officers had abused their power, did not call for medical assistance quickly enough and then deliberately covered up the facts to hinder the subsequent investigation. "How then can 'slight' [criminality] be the conclusion derived from this?" the petition asks.

The Communist Party, while espousing a strengthened focus on rule of law in China under President Xi Jinping, has had to contend with higher expectations from China's ever-expanding middle class as living and education standards rise.

This has manifested itself in petitioning and mass protests of increasing frequency in mainland China, over issues ranging from the construction of chemical factories or garbage incineration plants to the right to equal education for children, to victims of investment and financial fraud and anxiety over food safety and air pollution.

"This shows the rise of people's awareness of the law," another prominent lawyer, Li Xiaolin, said. "Indeed this [awareness] is the most significant progress of the rule of law in recent years."

While many prominent Chinese lawyers have expressed disquiet at how the Lei case has been resolved, some said the decision appeared a compromise in order not to further antagonise the police - who, on the surface at least, have found grey income sources they were accustomed to drying up in the wake of Xi's pervasive anti-corruption campaign.

The prosecution's report pointedly noted that popular "rumours" that police had entrapped Lei in an attempt to seek bribes had "no basis in fact".

Chen Youxi, the lawyer representing Lei's family, said in a statement last Sunday that preparations were already underway to lodge a case to sue the five police officers directly, but warned the case would come with "great pressure and great risk".

By Thursday, that pressure already appeared to have taken its toll.

In a second statement, the lawyer said the family had informed him they reached a "settlement" with authorities and dropped all plans to pursue further charges. Chen's statement included a message to him purportedly from Lei's family, which explained "for our personal reasons, the pressure has been too great … far exceeding what we, especially the two elderly [parents], can bear".

Xing Yongrui: expelled from the Communist Party and lost his police job.Credit: CCTV

"I did not participate in the family's settlement negotiations with authorities and am not aware of the details," Chen said. "The Lei Yang case has been brought to an end."

Later on Thursday, Beijing's Public Security Ministry announced all five officers had been dismissed, demoted or reassigned. The man who led the undercover brothel sting, Xing Yongrui, was expelled from the Communist Party as well as losing his job.