HANWANG, CHINA — In the 11 months since China's devastating earthquake, Wang Tingzhang and his wife have been transformed from docile, law-abiding citizens into defiant troublemakers, at least in the eyes of authorities.
Along the way, they've been pushed, punched, wiretapped, tailed and detained.
Their offense? Asking too many questions about what happened to their only child, an 18-year-old girl who was buried under the rubble of her high school in the May 12 earthquake here in Sichuan province.
In the early weeks after the magnitude 7.9 quake, Beijing was widely applauded for its efficiency, compassion and openness in handling China's worst natural disaster in decades. But since then, the curtain has fallen.
Even the death toll is shrouded in secrecy. Although about 70,000 people are believed to have died, the government has yet to release an official toll. DNA testing that could identify thousands of victims has stalled, with no explanation from authorities.
Parents and researchers asking about schools that collapsed have been detained and harassed.
Tan Zuoren, a literary editor and environmentalist who was creating an archive of children killed in collapsed schools, was arrested last month on charges of subverting state authority, according to Amnesty International. The rights organization said his dog was stabbed and his computer stolen as well.
In the last few weeks, more than 10 volunteers working on a similar project with Ai Weiwei, a Beijing artist best known as one of the designers of the so-called Bird's Nest Olympic stadium, were detained while doing research in Sichuan. One was beaten last weekend trying to photograph a school.
"Those in power view anybody asking questions as challenging the legitimacy of the government," said Ai, who has registered 5,000 names of the dead and is still counting. "In the case of my volunteers, you could say they deserved it. . . . But for the parents, most of whom are peasants and ordinary people, to be followed, harassed, wiretapped -- this is very scary for them."
There's a growing clamor for a complete listing of victims' names, ages and details of how they died so it can be determined whether a disproportionate number of schools collapsed compared with other buildings.
"If we bury the names of the dead, we cannot claim to have human rights in China," the Southern Metropolis Daily wrote in a hard-hitting editorial published Wednesday.
