Author Topic: China boot camp death once more  (Read 9045 times)

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Offline Oscar

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China boot camp death once more
« on: September 30, 2010, 08:58:51 AM »
Chinese teen allegedly beaten to death in boot camp: report, MCIL Multimedia (AFP), September 30, 2010

Quote
BEIJING, Thursday 30 September 2010 (AFP) - A Chinese teenager was allegedly beaten to death at a boot camp for troubled youths that his mother had lured him to attend by promising he was going to study IT, state media said Thursday.

Chen Shi, 16, died two days after enrolling in Beiteng School in Changsha, capital of central China's Hunan province, having been beaten up when he refused to run during training, the Beijing Times reported.

According to witnesses, an instructor -- helped by two others -- beat him with a plastic pipe, handcuffs and a wooden baton when he refused to run.

The incident comes amid controversy over China's hundreds of boot camps that aim to discipline unruly youths or wean them off web addictions.

His mother Tang Yulin decided to enrol Chen to toughen him up because he was "afraid of hardship, had weak willpower and not enough self-confidence" and had failed a school exam, it said.

They both travelled to Changsha from their home province of Jiangsu, in the east, after Tang told Chen he was going to study IT to persuade him to go.

The school's admissions director had advised her to lie, saying 90 percent of students who attended were given a false reason for attending and the remaining 10 percent were "kidnapped" by their parents or school instructors.

Tang paid 22,800 yuan (3,400 dollars) for half a year of attendance and went home after being told she would not be able to contact Chen directly but would have to use a teacher as an intermediary, the report said.

Two days later, she received a call from the school saying Chen was in hospital in critical condition "possibly from sunstroke," and asking her and her husband to come immediately.

They jumped on a plane but Chen died before they arrived. They managed to see his body -- which was covered in blood and bruises, while his underpants were torn.

The report quoted police as saying that three people had been detained on suspicion of killing Chen.

The school has now been closed amid disciplinary measures, the report said.

The Changsha police and education bureau were not immediately available for comment.

In August last year, the beating death of a teenage boy enrolled by his parents at an Internet addiction camp provoked outrage across the country.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline Eliscu2

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Re: China boot camp death once more
« Reply #1 on: October 01, 2010, 07:17:22 AM »
It sounds like TORTURE to me.
just sayin...
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
WELCOME TO HELL!

Offline Oscar

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Here we go again
« Reply #2 on: June 26, 2014, 03:28:55 AM »
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Teenager's death sheds light on brutal discipline at military-style camps for internet addicts
by Chris Luo, South China Morning Post, June 16 - 2014

A 19-year old girl’s death at a military-style “boot camp” in Henan province for internet-addiction treatment has shed light on the institute’s frequent use of corporal punishment.

The girl died last month after being forced to go through so-called “training” that involved being lifted by instructors to a short distance above the ground and then dropped, reported China National Radio on Sunday.

Another 14-year old girl who also underwent the same training suffered a dislocated bone at the back of her neck, and other head injuries. She said the dead girl had been forced to undergo this practice repeatedly for two hours before she started to vomit blood and eventually fell unconscious.

“They [trainers] suspected she was pretending and continued to kick her,” the injured teenager was cited as saying in recalling the fatal incident. Eventually the 19-year-old stopped breathing before medical staff called by the treatment camp arrived at the scene, but they were unable to revive her.

Zhengzhou police have detained five trainers who were allegedly involved in the girl’s death. The municipal education bureau also stripped the centre of its licence due to its “chaotic administration”.

Other students at the institute told the radio programme that trainers frequently resorted to corporal punishment. Students were often ordered to “stand still at night without going to sleep and lie on their stomachs on snow-covered fields in the winter,” the programme reported.

Students had been so desperate to escape from the centre that they resorted to throwing “rescue notes” from the windows.

Copies of some of the notes found by parents included phrases like “I want to go home, please call my mum”, and “Please save me, don’t tell teachers”. The report also said one student injured himself in an escape attempt by jumping from the second floor of the camp’s building. Another tried to poison himself by swallowing ink.

The institutes, with various names such as “behaviour modification centres” or “boot camps”, often tout programmes that last weeks or months to help treat “problematic children”, notably those addicted to the internet and school drop-outs who had proved difficult to discipline by their parents.

The programmes have been flourishing in the past decade as they have been the solution for many parents in dealing with their troubled teens.

But the camps vary wildly in standards due to inadequate government regulations in some parts of the country.

Many of the centres take a military-style approach and mete out harsh discipline to students. Media reports have revealed that students at some of the camps have experienced prison-like conditions and punishment amounting to abuse.

In 2009, a 15-year-old boy from Guangxi province died from being severely beaten by trainers just two days after arriving a camp treating internet addiction.

The incident sparked a public outcry and prompted the Health Ministry to issue guidelines banning the practices of restricting students’ freedom, locking them up or physical punishment. The Ministry earlier had also banned the use of electro-shock treatment for internet addiction.