Chinese Judge Blocks Quake Death Lawsuits

Parents whose children were killed when dozens of Chinese government schools collapsed in the Sichuan earthquake had their lawsuit rejected by a Chinese judge.

The court's move is a sign of the authorities' extreme sensitivity to any protests by parents demanding investigations into alleged corruption and shoddy construction, a flash point for government critics after the 7.9-magnitude quake killed nearly 70,000 people in Sichuan province, including many students.

The group of about 60 parents filed the lawsuit against school and local authorities in Sichuan province Dec. 1 at the Deyang People's Intermediate Court, said a parent who would only give his surname, Sang, because he was afraid of official retaliation.

The parents want an official apology and compensation for the deaths of their children after Fuxin No. 2 Primary School in Mianzhu city collapsed during the May 12 quake.

The government still has not given a separate toll for children who were crushed when their shoddily built schools collapsed, but has said that about 7,000 classrooms were destroyed. Their deaths have become a sensitive political issue, with parents — many of whom lost their only child — staging protests demanding investigations.

Many of the parents say they have also been subjected to intimidation and financial inducements to silence them.

Sang, one of the parents' representatives, said a judge from the court last week informed the plaintiffs verbally that it would not accept their case and that the central government had issued an internal memo to the courts to say that such cases were not to be heard.

Many of the schools were built with substandard materials, and collapsed when the 7.9 quake hit. Thousands of children were killed in schools, but the Chinese government refuses to account for just how many children indeed died in the disaster.

The parents face serious intimidation from the government, including threats of charges of treason for talking with international media.

The fact is that the Chinese have admitted to cutting corners when building those schools. One principal took matters into his own hands and spent $58,000 to retrofit his school. In the process, he saved 2,323 students and teachers from the grim fate that befell so many other schools around the region.