16-year-old Yang Zhong, the Gansu teenager who attracted attention in September when he was detained under new laws that criminalize the spread of online rumors, sued the local police on Thursday. He and his father are demanding an apology and symbolic compensation of 1 RMB for each day of his week-long sentence, during which he says he was repeatedly beaten. From Didi Kirsten Tatlow of The New York Times:
They also applied for Mr. Yang’s detention order to be legally overturned, saying he had done nothing wrong.
“It’s not about the money,” said Mr. Yang, a middle-school student whose photographs show a dusting of dark hair on his upper lip, and who says he loves “to read about true events.”
“I want to make the police who beat me responsible. What they did was illegal. It was definitely not O.K.,” he said, the words coming out in a torrent.
Several attempts to reach the Zhangjiachuan Police for comment failed, with calls unanswered or transferred to lines that were not active. [Source]
