Yihuang self-immolation incident

The Yihuang self-immolation incident (宜黄自焚事件) refers to a self-immolation event that occurred at Yihuang County, Fuzhou, Jiangxi, China on September 10, 2010. A large group of demolition crew and several government authorities came to Zhong's family to demolish their house. Then, Ye Zhongcheng (叶忠诚) and two family members climbed on the roof of the house, burning themselves to protest. Later, Ye was seriously hurt and was pronounced dead.^[1]

Background

Zhong's family

The Zhongs consists of at least 8 members, living in a three-story house with 3 real estate licenses.

• The asterisk (*) indicates at home during the incident.
• Ye Zhongcheng was Zhong Rukui's father's blood brother.
• Zhong Rukui, Zhong Rutian, Zhong Ruman were the three brothers who owned the three licenses.
• According to the Zhongs, Zhong Rukui's father got a kind of lung disease in 2007, living with a medical ventilator. However, life got harder since April 18, 2010, they had their power supply cut off by force. The Zhongs had to buy themselves an electrical generator. The gasoline that mentioned in this incident, claimed by the Zhongs, was used for powering up the generator. Later, Zhong Rukui's father died.^[2]

Demolition

Two days after the incident, the Yihuang government put out a file titled On the fact of the one of a to-be-demolished family in Yihuang that carelessly burned himself by gasoline (关于“宜黄县一拆迁对象泼汽油不慎烧伤”的事实情况). According to the file, Zhong's family and its surrounding 20 families were supposed to be built a new bus terminal in 2007. The 20 families but the Zhongs signed the compensation agreement for the demolition. Later, the Yihuang Investment and Development Company gave the family two options, one is monetary compensation and the other one is to exchange the house about 60 meters next to the current one. Both options were objected by the Zhongs, the file added, and the Zhongs made another 3 options that either to rebuild in situ, exchange 4 pieces of land totaling 480 m² or 3 million yuan for compensation.^[3] But the Zhongs said that they hadn't given that options and believed that they were inventing a story to pull out.^[4]

Event

About 9 am on September 10, 2010, a group of more than 40 police and crew from Chengguan and some government authorities came to Zhongs' house, claiming that they need to enter the house to check the gasoline and saying that it's an emergency after Zhong Rucui asked them if they had the search warrant. Then the Zhongs locked the door. Several minutes later, the police broke the door down and went up stairs.^[5]

See also

• Tang Fu-zhen self-immolation incident (2009)

Reference