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CHINESE POLICE HAVE released surveillance video footage of a knife-wielding attacker who stabbed 22 students at a primary school last week, after the assault was given limited prominence in national media.
The grainy video shows a male attacker pursuing a group of children through a school gate and slashing one child with a knife, causing her to fall to the ground.
Panicked children then stream out of the school gates to escape the attacker, identified by local police as 36-year-old Min Yongjun, before adults enter equipped with straw brooms, chasing out Min.
No guards are visible close to the school’s gate.
No-one was killed but 22 children were injured in the attack at a school in the central Chinese province of Henan on Friday, the same day that 20 children were shot dead at a primary school in Newtown, Connecticut in the US.
Despite the severity and scale of the US attack Chinese social media users complained that the Henan incident should have been given more coverage in the country.
“The headlines are still dominated by the American attack, I haven’t seen reports about the attack in Henan which happened on the same day,” wrote one user of Sina Weibo, a website similar to Twitter.
“Aren’t Chinese children’s lives also important? It’s a tragedy.”
According to instructions obtained by the China Digital Times website the government’s central propaganda department told Chinese media to downplay the Henan attack.
It quoted officials as telling media not to put the news on the front page or lure readers to it, and not to produce reports or comment on it other than those provided by Xinhua, the state-run news agency.
Local authorities said that Min had been “influenced by rumours of the end of the world”, which some in China believe is due to occur today, in line with supposed Mayan prophecies.
Six local officials including the school principal were removed from their positions, according to reports.
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I agree I couldn’t believe the lack of coverage in the media about this awful awful incident.
Seems unusual to release such a video – sounds horrific.
Sadly this type of event isn’t an uncommon event in China – it is mostly under reported in the west. Never understood why. For the most part, it appears to be migrant workers attacking middle class children. Massive wealth gaps feeding jealously and virtually no mental healthcare system seems to be resulting in an outbreak of this over past couple of years.
Don’t believe it’s a time to blame China like some will – they have come from nothing over past 20/30 years and don’t have the expertise or understanding of such healthcare systems yet. Time will improve this, but I hope they focus a little more on such things rather than 100% focusing on growing the economy.
…culture takes years to catch up with”progress” look at us!….
U cant really see anything in the video, and they are right! American’s always get all the attention http://youtu.be/7c0LPWtFDcI
America IS the media, it turns a horrible event like a mass shooting into a body count record, making the killers into “celebrities” China has its own culture and beliefs and was one of the earliest “civilised” societies. but does not get as much media time because the media in America is trying to bring in as much money and air time as possible.
Spot on
Ye do know this happened in CHINA,there is no media coverage the state control what you see and what you cant.The shootings in Newton C.T ended with 26 dead mostly kids,it might be just a little more important.Save the anti usa rants for another day guys….
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