beyondBeijing2008.com

BEIJING – As the government here tries in vain to control its burgeoning and unruly blogosphere, the term “duo maomao” or “eluding the cat” has been added to the ever-growing list of buzzwords in Chinese ‘Netizens’ vernacular.

Eluding the cat is a children’s game, similar to hide and seek. In this case, though, it refers to an incident far beyond  a lighthearted children’s game: the authorities’ convoluted explanation of the death of Li Qiaoming, a prisoner in a Jinning county prison in China’s southeastern Yunnan province.

Twenty-four-year-old Li was arrested in January when he allegedly was caught illegally logging. His death due to severe head trauma less than a month after he was jailed was ruled an accident by the Puning County Public Security Bureau. They declared in their official report that Li had “run into a wall” while playing hide and seek.

A local government newspaper, the Yunnan Information Times, later offered more details, describing a fight that supposedly erupted during the game:

“The police disclosed on the evening of February 12 the latest development in their investigation: ‘The deceased caught the fellow prisoner named Pu during the ‘elude the cat’ game. Pu was unhappy and the two men had a dispute.  During the argument, Pu kicked the deceased once and then punched him on the head once.  The deceased lost his balance and fell backwards, whereupon his head hit the sharp corner formed by the wall and the door.  This was how the deceased got injured.”

The explanation of the circumstances behind prisoner Li’s death instantly caused an uproar in the Chinese blogosphere.

On Sina.com, a popular Web portal in China, the incident’s discussion thread generated over 54,000 comments expressing outrage – and a good deal of mordant humor – over the official report.