New York, 6 May, 2009 (HRW)- The Chinese government should mark the first anniversary of the devastating May 12, 2008, Sichuan earthquake by offering legal redress to surviving relatives, making public all information about quake-related deaths and damages, and dropping onerous requirements for media who want to report from the area, Human Rights Watch said today.
Human Rights Watch urges the Chinese government to allow relatives who lost family in the quake to freely bring lawsuits against those they believe are responsible for allegedly shoddy school construction linked to the deaths of thousands of children in the quake zone.
An estimated 70,000 people died in the May 2008 quake, many of them students whose schools collapsed. Over the past year, some parents have demanded an official inquiry into the buildings’ deficiencies, a completion of DNA testing to identify quake victims, and a complete list of victims’ names and ages. There are parents who have filed lawsuits alleging that faulty construction contributed to the collapse of their children’s schools, but to date no courts have accepted the cases. Not only have many of these parents been harassed, detained, and in some cases kicked or punched by officials and security forces, but the government has also pressured many of the victims’ families to accept one-time compensation payments in exchange for ceasing demands for a public accounting.
Læs videre på: www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/05/06/china-end-quake-zone-abuses
