The Yanshi Incident

I will begin to say that it is immensely difficult for me to present this case.  I mean, IMMENSELY.

I am going to start this with the description in (WARNING: Do not click on this!) Reporter Home:

8月4日傍晚约7点左右，，河南偃师市缑氏镇石家沟村石家沟特大桥施工现场发生一起惨案，一死三重伤。据村民介绍，该村李现杰等村民因村民的耕地被毁与施工方谈判，施工方老板过来以答复为由，骗李现杰等人滞留现场，后来有30多人乘坐无排照出租车到现场，手持砍刀分成几组冲向人群，受害人李现杰被砍13刀而惨死，另有三民村民被砍重伤，其中一村民双手被砍断,手段及其残忍，十分罕见。据村民讲，行凶者是带有黑社会性质的犯罪团伙。

当地警方认为是斗殴事件. 

[in translation]

At around 7pm on August 4, a tragic incident took place at the construction site for the Shijiagou bridge, Shijiagou village, Goushi town, Yanshi city, Henan province.  One person died and three persons were injured.  According to the villlagers, villagers Li Xianji and others had been negotiating with the builders over their farmland being destroyed.  The construction boss said that he was ready to provide a reply and asked Li and the others to present themselves at the site.  It would turn out that more than 30 persons showed up in hired taxicabs and charged at the assembly with machetes.  The victim Li Xianji was stabbed thirteen dies and expired.  Three other villagers suffered serious injuries, including one who had both hands cut off.  The brutality was extraodinary.  According to the villagers, the perpetrators came from criminal organizations with gang affiliations.

The police believed that there had been a fight.

Yes, but so what?  This is China and there must be hundreds of similar incidents each and every day in such a vast country.

The Reporter Home report reminds people about the Dingzhou incident (see The Shengyou Reporter's Field Notes).  In that case, the villagers protesting against the land requisition were assaulted by several hundred hired underworld thugs armed with hunting rifles, spears, clubs and Molotov cocktails and suffered six deaths and about 150 injured.  There was a video recording of the incident posted on the Internet.  As a result of the official investigation, four persons responsible for the assault were sentenced to death and the local party secretary was sentenced to life in prison.

But none of all can remotely touch the Yanshi case in brutality.

First, the numbers were overwhelmingly in favor of the assailants.  The only question was the degree of damage that they intended to wrought.

Second, we have to go back to some folklore.  How do underworld gangsters attack people?  The most extreme is to kill without mercy.  The next most extreme is to maim.  What does it mean to maim?  It means to cripple someone for good.  How do you cripple someone for good?  If you just stab them, they may recover.  So you will have to administer injuries that not even good surgeons can patch up.  The most common points of attack are therefore the tendons on the hands, behind the knees and the Achille's tendons right above the heels.  Abstractly, you can understand that.  Concretely, you probably have no idea.

So I have going to show you the photographs of the injuries.

You are forewarned: THIS IS EXTREMELY GORY.  You are likely to get sick!  If you don't, something is wrong with you!  Take a deep breath and click on this page.

Now that you have seen the photographs, you may be mad at me for upsetting you.  Well, I'm sorry to upset your beautiful mind, but I really don't know how else to get you to understand the inhumanity of it all ...