Hysteria?

Benjamin Joffe-Walt wrote 'They beat him until he was lifeless'

The last time I saw Lu Banglie, he was lying in a ditch on the side of the street - placid, numb and lifeless - the spit, snot and urine of about 20 men mixing with his blood, and running all over his body....He lay there - his eye out of its socket, his tongue cut, a stream of blood dropping from his mouth, his body limp, twisted. The ligaments in his neck were broken, so his head lay sideways as if connected to the rest of his body by a rubber band.

It turns out this former human shield is a bit of an hysteric. Jonathan Watts added Protests surge as reforms fail to match rising hopes

The government says 3.6 million people took part in 74,000 "mass incidents" last year, an increase of more than 20% on 2003. Most of these protests were sporadic, disorganised and centred on local issues, typically land ownership rights, official corruption and environmental destruction. But they have alarmed the authorities. At last year's central party meeting, the leadership called rural unrest a "life or death" issue for the party, which pledged to make itself more responsive to the concerns of the people.

But plodding political reforms have failed to keep up with rising expectations among the public. According to the local media, the most ambitious proposal on the agenda this year is to allow towns in three provinces to vote for their mayor. The main thrust of the reforms is to maintain Communist party rule.

Civil rights activists say this is out of touch with public opinion and a rising grass-roots democracy movement. "There is growing coordination among activists," said Hou Wenzhou, director of the Empowerment and Rights Institute. "There is growing awareness of rights among the public and there is growing resentment of the government."

She said that while the number of activists was still small - just a few hundred in Beijing, and less in other cities - numbers had increased sharply in the past three years. The Taishi case, in which outside activists supported the locals in their attempt to impeach their mayor, showed they were becoming more organised.

And finally Activist found alive after beating by mob. So he's not dead after all. Many more details of the the Taishi 太石 elections at EastWestNorthSouth