China pays €6,900 to mother of boy beaten to death by police

THE Chinese authorities have paid compensation to the mother of a 15-year-old boy who was beaten to death by police amid the crackdown on pro-democracy protests in 1989, an activist said yesterday.

The payment, apparently the first of its kind, did not appear to signal that China planned to compensate the hundreds, possibly thousands, of people killed when military police were ordered to crush a swell of protests in the summer of 1989.

Officials in the city of Chengdu agreed to pay Tang Deying 70,000 yuan (around €6,900) in “hardship assistance” for the death of her son Zhou Guocong while he was in police custody on June 6, 1989, said activist Huang Qi.