China shushes quake protesters

Wednesday, July 9, 2008 By WILLIAM FOREMAN The Associated Press WUFU, China — Angry parents whose children were crushed to death in schools that collapsed in China's mighty earthquake are no longer being allowed to march, wave banners and vent their rage in public. Officials are now using a variety of tactics — threats, money, promises of justice, police muscle — to intimidate, appease or hush up the grieving mothers and fathers who believe that nearly 7,000 classrooms crumbled so easily because corrupt and incompetent officials didn't build them properly. Two months after the quake, seething anger runs through the town of Wufu, with its green rice fields and concrete farm houses. Wufu became a hotbed of quake protests after the town's Fuxin No. 2 Primary School caved in, killing 127 students. "Police from Deyang came to our... [read full story]