Activist ‘broke his own neck’

CHINESE investigators have concluded that an activist who said he was paralysed after assailants broke his neck inflicted the injury on himself, his son said yesterday.

“We cannot accept this decision,” said Fu Bing, whose father, Fu Xiancai, criticised the government’s treatment of people who were forced to relocate as a result of the Three Gorges dam project.

Fu Xiancai was injured three weeks after German public television broadcast an interview in which he said he was threatened and beaten for complaining about inadequate compensation for relocated residents.

He says that on June 8, he was called into the Zigui County Public Security Bureau in Hubei province and criticised for his television appearance. He was attacked after leaving the police station, he said.

On Wednesday, the head of the security bureau’s forensics department and another county official said that experts had concluded that the injuries were self-inflicted, Fu Bing said.

Investigators refused to release other details, but said they found no other footprints at the scene, indicating his father had been alone, Fu Bing said.

Authorities told the Fu family not to appeal the decision or file a new complaint, Fu Bing said.

Fu Xiancai underwent an operation last month that may enable him to use a wheelchair, but doctors have said he will not walk again.