Footage fuels new debate over activist's death (News Feature)

By Bill Smith Feb 1, 2011, 9:14 GMT

Beijing - Footage showed Tuesday that police said was recorded by a camera-watch worn by a land-rights activist prompted new debate over his death.

Prosecutors presented the video footage and the wristwatch as evidence to the court at the trial of unlicensed truck driver Fei Liangyu in eastern China's Zhejiang province.

Fei was sentenced to three and a half years in prison following the death of village head and land-rights activist Qian Yunhui in Zhejiang's Zhaiqiao village on December 25.

Local authorities insisted that Qian died in a traffic accident in Zhaiqiao village, but his death provoked an outcry from internet users and rights activists.

Posts on several major forums and local websites about the case reportedly attracted 4 million hits and 200,000 comments within a week of his death.

Some claimed that witnesses had reported seeing unidentified people push or throw Qian under the truck, and police fought scores of villagers who staged protests after the death of the popular leader.

Rights groups quoted family members as saying Qian had spent the two nights before his death away from his home because he feared an attack.

Several groups of rights activists and lawyers travelled to Zhaiqiao and attempted to investigate Qian's death in early January, but they were thwarted by the detention of key witnesses and at least two of Qian's relatives.

The case is the most serious reflection in recent months of a broad lack of trust of authorities by ordinary people.

In an apparent effort to rebuild trust, state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) on Tuesday showed the 2-minute recording from the camera-wristwatch that the police said Qian was operating just before his death.

A CCTV presenter outside the court said background noise on the recording and the speed and direction of movement were all consistent with the police conclusion that Qian was crossing the road when he was killed.

The broadcast included rare footage of a Chinese trial in progress, showing a judge holding up the stainless steel watch.

Fei said he was not satisfied with the outcome of his trial and planned to appeal, meaning the case could return to court.

The broadcast of the video recording also appeared to do little to appease those who insist that Qian's death remains suspicious.

Several activists who discussed Tuesday's footage on the micro-blogging website Twitter said it appeared to have been edited, while others speculated the police could have created the video to back their claim that Qian's death was an 'ordinary traffic accident.'

'UN please help us. The Chinese government is fooling us!' said one Twitter poster using the name Anguine Chan.

'We all knew the result [of Tuesday's trial], why be bothered?' another commenter said on the popular Sina.com micro-blogging site.

'So many doubts haven't been explained. The court has already passed sentence?' Li Yong said on the same site.

'The Village Head-brand watch is not an ordinary wristwatch, it is a wristwatch with super powers. It can accurately record images of the last minute of your life,' said another sarcastic Twitter post from Tao Dafen.

People's Daily, the ruling Communist Party's official newspaper, published a commentary on Sunday that cited Qian's case and urged state media to 'resist the temptations of sensationalism in the face of misleading internet postings.'

But on Monday, China Daily, an official English-language newspaper, discussed an apparent discrepancy between two photographs of Qian.

'One shows Qian wearing a watch on his wrist when he died, while another shows Qian with nothing on his wrist,' the newspaper said of the photographs.

'That minor difference stirred speculation that the watch might contain a micro recorder,' it said.

Activists and petitioners increasingly use small digital cameras, mobile phones and miniature recording devices, including wristwatches, to record protests and alleged abuses by Chinese authorities.

The police said they received Qian's watch from Wang Liquan, a villager who reportedly told them he took it from Qian's wrist and hid it at a neighbour's house until he recovered it on January 13.

Before Tuesday's trial Qian's family had accepted an offer of 1.05 million yuan (160,000 dollars) in compensation from Fei and his haulage company.

Qian had represented villagers since 2004 when the Zhejiang Provincial Energy Group took control of 150 hectares of farmland for industrial development, the China Youth Daily and other state media said.

He was detained three times over his petitioning for compensation for villagers who lost land, the reports said.

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