Hit and Run driver sentenced to 30 months in jail.

I'm not buying this line at all:

"Relevant witnesses and evidence showed that Hu didn't know he had initiated the tragedy until others mentioned it to him three days after the accident."

The video clearly shows him stopping and then starting forward again to run over her with the rear wheels and get away. There is no way he was unaware of what he'd done. Still, 30 months is better than nothing.

Driver sentenced over baby’s death mourned by nation

A court in Guangdong Province on Wednesday sentenced a driver to two-and-a-half years in jail for involuntary homicide that resulted in the death of a 2-year-old girl, a case that prompted nationwide soul-searching in 2011.

Hu Jun was convicted of involuntary homicide in the final trial by the Foshan Intermediate People's Court in the province where the girl, named Wang Yue, also called Xiao Yueyue, was hit and crushed by Hu's minibus and another vehicle on October 13, 2011, the Guangzhou-based Yangcheng Evening News reported. 

The critically injured Wang was left lying on the street as 18 pedestrians and cyclists passed by without stopping to help. An elderly scrap collector eventually came to the infant's aid but she died of brain injuries days later, according to the Xinhua News Agency. 

Relevant witnesses and evidence showed that Hu didn't know he had initiated the tragedy until others mentioned it to him three days after the accident. 

He recognized his vehicle after being shown the video footage. He then surrendered to police, the newspaper said.  

On September 5, Hu was sentenced to three-and a half years imprisonment by the Nanhai District People's Court in Foshan.  

After the first trail Hu appealed his sentence and agreed to pay 303,000 yuan ($48,632) to the toddler's parents, who said they forgave Hu, reported the newspaper. 

During the second trial, the court heard that the incident occurred on a pedestrian walkway between stores in a hardware market that was not designed for motor vehicles. The prosecution insisted Hu's conviction should not be overturned. 

Given Hu's positive action and willingness to compensate the victim's parents, the court agreed to reduce Hu's penalty. 

"The second trial is appropriate and in line with China's criminal law," Wang Zhenyu, a law researcher with the China University of Political Science and Law, told the Global Times. "Hu turned himself in to police and paid compensation. He should get a lighter penalty."

Response from Ed Fast. Minister of Int'l Trade and the Asia Pacific Gateway

(Translation: "We're working on it.")


Dear Mr. Latimer:

Thank you for your emails regarding Canada's relationship with China and
your concerns about trade and human rights. I apologize for the delay in
replying to you.

The relationship between Canada and China is a comprehensive one that
involves engagement on a wide range of issues including trade and
investment as well as human rights. Canadian values and commercial
relations are not mutually exclusive and we are confident that we can
engage effectively in both areas.

Human rights are an important foreign policy priority for Canada in its
relationship with China. Canada interacts with China on a range of
subjects at both bilateral and multilateral levels to work toward
concrete improvements in terms of human rights. At the bilateral level,
Canadian advocacy conducted through high-level visits, official
meetings, diplomatic representations and public statements is
concentrated on systemic issues and specific cases of concern. The
Government of Canada's policy for the Canadian International Development
Agency on human rights, democratization and good governance encourages
the development of human rights on the ground by supporting China's
civil society, legal aid system, and training of prosecutors and defence
lawyers. At the multilateral level, Canada registers its human rights
concerns in the United Nations General Assembly and the United Nations
Human Rights Council by way of public statements.

I understand your concerns with respect to child safety. The Government
of Canada believes that each child has the right to her or his physical
and personal integrity and protection. This is why we undertake many
activities, both nationally and internationally, to help ensure every
child can live free from violence whether at home, in school or in the
community.

Canada takes appropriate opportunities to express its concerns to the
Chinese government using bilateral and multilateral channels. During my
visit to China in October 2011 and again in February of this year, I
discussed the importance that Canada places on human rights.

Please rest assured that Canada will continue to make the pursuit of
human rights a priority in its relationship with China.

Once again, thank you for taking the time to write and share your
thoughts.

Sincerely,

The Honourable Ed Fast, P.C., Q.C., M.P.
Minister of International Trade and
Minister for the Asia-Pacific Gateway

Finally some good news.

Chinese city poised to introduce country's first Good Samaritan rules

Shenzhen publishes draft regulations to encourage people to come to each other's aid in the wake of the death of a two-year-old girl

• Tania Branigan in Beijing
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 29 November 2011 23.53 EST
•  larger | smaller

The mother of two-year-old Yueyue, who died after being hit by a van and ignored by passers-by. Photograph: China Foto Press/Barcroft Media

A major Chinese city wants to introduce the country's first "Good Samaritan" rules to encourage residents to help each other, after the death of a two-year-old girl whose plight was ignored by passersby horrified the nation.

Millions watched the shocking surveillance footage showing Yueyue being knocked down by a van, ignored by a stream of passers-by and run over by a second vehicle before a woman finally came to her aid. The girl from Foshan, Guangdong province, died days later in hospital.

Officials in nearby Shenzhen have published a draft of rules designed to encourage people to come to each other's aid, the Guangzhou Daily reported.

It follows widespread calls for a national law in the wake of Yueyue's death, with experts warning that many people were too frightened to help each other thanks to a spate of cases where people sued their rescuers, alleging they had caused the injuries in the first place. In some cases they may have been genuinely mistaken, but in others the claims seem to have been blatant extortion.

According to a report in the Guangzhou Daily, the new rules free Good Samaritans from legal responsibility for the condition of the person they help, except in the case of gross negligence.

"This can be seen as the core of the regulation. Its goal is to free citizens who do good things from worries," said by Zhang Jian, a lawyer at the Shenzhen Dacheng law firm.

Those who falsely accuse helpers of causing their injuries will face punishments ranging from having to make a public apology to paying fines or even detention.

Other measures include offering legal aid to helpers who are sued and official visits to Good Samaritans to express the city's appreciation.

The rules also state that the burden of evidence lies on the person accusing a rescuer of wrongdoing, not on the person who does the rescue.

In several cases, police and courts have demanded that the helper prove his or her innocence, while the extortionist has not needed to produce evidence. One judge ordered a man to pay more than 45,000 yuan (£4,400) to an old lady he had taken to hospital, arguing it was common sense that he would not have gone to such trouble unless he had caused her fall.

"I am very happy that this regulation has come out. People have been hoping for it for a long time," said Professor Tan Fang of South China Normal University, who has set up a foundation giving legal support to helpers who are wrongly accused of harm.

"I hope Shenzhen can strictly enforce the regulation. I also hope the regulation will be adopted by more provinces and become a national law."

But Zhang suggested it was unfair to place the burden of proof on the person helped.

"If so-called helpers actually made a major mistake, and the victims cannot offer evidence, then can the helpers just go unpunished by law?" he asked.

When lawyers rule the world - this is what you get.

As I followed the story it came to light that there were several things deeply wrong with Chinese society as we know it today.

To my great distress, I further realized that the news commentary seemed to be attempting to downplay the evil so evidently displayed in the video.

It went something like this...

The Moral Vacuum.
Initially, commentators began to speculate that "perhaps Chinese morality has not kept pace with it's economic development." Referring to the fact that decades of Communism have now been supplanted by the pursuit of monetary gain, causing Chinese culture to come unhinged from any moral underpinnings.

"Perhaps"!?! What do you mean "perhaps"?! A toddler is run down and left to die like a dog in the street and the best you can come up with is "perhaps"?? As if to say "We can't say for sure, but maybe this should not have happened."

The Bystander Effect.
Next, the ghost of Kitty Genovese was conjured up as a soothing balm for our Western sensibilities. This particular line of reasoning states that when groups of people witness a traumatic event, there is a high probability that no one will come forward to intervene, preferring instead to wait for someone else in the group to make the first move. Sort of like a whole bunch of people second guessing themselves all at the same time.

The only problem is that the "Foshan 18" (as I call them) were not in a group. This is a huge difference that cannot possibly be understated. Each of those 18 people was confronted, individually, with a choice: to help or to keep walking. They all chose to keep walking.

So much for the bystander effect.

Any reasonably intelligent journalist should have been able to figure these things out. But did I see - even once - someone come out and say it was all b.s. - that none of these things fully explain what happened? No. Not once.

What does explain it (mostly) is a strong cultural aversion toward getting involved in other peoples business combined with:

The 'Nanking Judge'.

This refers to several recent cases in which accident victims successfully sued the Good Samaritans that came to their aid. Despite how completely twisted this sounds, it's true. The Nanking Judge ruled that, by helping an old woman who had been struck by a car, a Good Samaritan named Peng Yu had "acted contrary to common sense" and therefore must have been the person that caused the accident - presumably then acting out of guilt to try and correct the situation (why else would he have helped her?).

No doubt, then, the Nanking Judge would approve of the actions of the Foshan 18. Surely he must be able to watch the video and nod his head approvingly at the display of good common sense that is evident.

Peng Yu nearly lost everything he had (and he wasn't the last person this happened to) and still ended up paying something like 40,000 yuan.

So when you weigh the very real possibility of losing your entire life savings against the desire to help an injured person (or even a child) things start to look a little different.

In light of this I can almost (but not quite) let the Foshan 18 off the hook. It took an old woman who most likely has no access to the internet and therefore knew nothing about Peng Yu's highly publicized case, to intervene and try to save Wang Yeu's life.

For this reason, along with, and even more than, the Foshan 18, it is the Nanking Judge and, by extension, the government of China that bear full responsibility for the death of Wang Yeu.

As a Canadian, I am ashamed that my country continues to do business with such an evil, atheistic, morally bankrupt nation as China has now become.

YeuYeu's killer formally detained and charged - and the bastard has a daughter of his own!

Story from The Shanghaiist:

First driver who ran over Yueyue formally detained by Foshan police

Foshan's Nanhai District Procuratorate has formally approved the arrest of Hu Jun, the first of two drivers who ran over two-year-old toddler, Yueyue, in the double hit-and-run that has gripped the nation and the world this week. The formality paves the way for the next step in the legal process of a case that will be highly watched by all quarters of Chinese society.

24-year-old truck driver Hu Jun, from Feicheng near Tai'an in Shandong province, was seen on CCTV footage knocking down the toddler, and then running over her a second time with a rear wheel as he made his escape. Seven minutes, 18 bystanders, and a subsequent hit by another vehicle later, help for Yueyue finally arrived in the form of 58-year-old scrap peddlerChen Xianmei, and later, Yueyue's mother.

A journalist from Taishan Evening News made her way to Jiangzhuang Village in Wangguadian Town off Feicheng to speak to the family of Hu Jun. Hu's mother, Zhang Yuchun, had been crying rivers of tears. She said that the family first found out about the accident on the afternoon of October 16, two days after it happened.

"That day, Hu Jun called up his father, saying he had seen a video of someone running over a child. He later realised that he was that person in the van, but he didn't know at the time that there was a child on the floor," said Zhang.

[I'm calling b.s. on that last statement based on a quote from Hu Jun on the day of the incident in which he stated "When I realized I had knocked her down, I thought I'd go down and see how she was, but since she was already bleeding I decided to step on the gas and get out of there, since there was no one around me."]

Hu was shocked out of his wits, and was making the call to inform the family in case anything happened, added Zhang. Her husband, Hu Xuwei advised him to turn himself in to the police before flying to Guangdong that very evening. "Upon his arrival in Guangzhou, he was unable to get in touch with our son. I myself, don't know how to get online, and as I was unable to get posted on the latest developments, I could only sit and fret," she said.

The second of three children, and the only son, Hu Jun has been married for two years. In February this year, he moved with his wife and their then 50-day-old daughter to Foshan, against the wishes of his mother, to seek a better life. The couple ran a little store to make their living, and on the day of the accident, Hu was out running errands for the business.

"All the neighbours say my son is a good man, an honest man. Since he was young, he has never told a lie, or gotten into a fight with anybody."

"We hope that Yueyue's parents can forgive my son. Our entire family is so sorry for all the hurt that he has caused them. Now our only wish is that the police can be more lenient to our son," said Zhang as she wiped away her tears.

Email to The Globe and Mail re: 'YeuYeu's Death is China's shame, but we have our own'.

In his article, journalist Gary Mason is for some reason attempting to equivocate. He's either trying to avoid the ugly, ugly truth of the matter or he's got an agenda. Or maybe he owns' shares in an import / export company. Either way, he needs correcting.

Dear Mr. Mason,

You have made two inaccurate assumptions in your article today. This is understandable since facing squarely up to what the death of YeuYeu truly implies is extremely difficult and takes a great deal of courage.

However, I feel obligated to point out the following.

The much touted "bystander effect" is only useful in explaining the inaction of groups of people simultaneously witnessing a traumatic event. 

The adults who failed YeuYeu were not in a group, they were walking by as individuals. 

18 individual adults were each faced with a private choice of whether or not to render aid and comfort to a gravely injured child, and they all chose to do nothing.

No help. No comfort. Not even a cell phone call to emergency services.

If they were squeamish or worried about lawsuits there were ways to assist without touching the child: ask around, block the street to avoid the second hit and run, or, again, just call EMS.

But they did nothing. A quote from one of the passers-by gives us an insight. The man, after being questioned by reporters said: "It's not my child. Why should I bother to help?"

Your second assumption, that somehow an injured child can be directly compared to an injured adult, is also off the mark.

You repeatedly use phrases like "someone" and "another person".

A child is very much more than just "another person" and our treatment of them as a society is a litmus test of our moral well-being.

A litmus test, I should point out, that China has failed. Miserably.

Ghandi said that a nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members. Never was this truth more evident than in the horrifying cruelty and indifference that resulted in YeuYeu's death.

The government of China, after 30 years of Communism mixed with a prosperity fueled in large part by trade with Canada and the U.S., has succeeded in creating a depraved, morally bankrupt society incapable of valuing human life.

The horrifying lack of empathy evident in the death of YeuYeu is an indictment upon Chinese society first of all, but not only upon them.

Through our trade agreements with that country we are, in effect, giving them our tacit approval for their actions and further fueling the fire of an economic growth which has far, far outstripped their morals.

It is our duty as Canadian citizens to stop immediately all trade with China until they have made real steps toward getting their society back on a course in keeping with accepted standards of moral and ethical behavior among modern, industrialized nations.

Email to Ed Fast, Minister of International Trade for Canada

Dear Minister Fast,

I hope this email finds you well. Thank you for taking a few moments to read this message from a concerned citizen.

First let me say that I am encouraged by reading your statement of October 18th regarding the trade relations between Canada and the U.S. You are quite correct in pointing out the benefits of lowering trade barriers between our two great nations. Yet there remain opportunities to do more.

Minister Fast, I am anxious to know your response to the case of Wang Yeu - the Chinese toddler fatally injured in a double hit-and-run on October 15th in the city of Foshan, China. 

After she was run down no fewer than 18 people (clearly seen on the security camera footage since uploaded to YouTube) walked, rode, and drove by (and in one case, over) Wang Yeu as she lay in plain view on the side of the busy street. 18 people, Minister, and not one of them lifted a finger to help. Not even bothering to call for an ambulance or perhaps block traffic until help could arrive.

Wang Yeu's death has caused an international outcry. If you are not familiar with this story I strongly urge you to search YouTube or Google for "Chinese Toddler Hit and Run" to verify what I am telling you. 

I must, in good conscience, caution you against watching the unedited video as it will no doubt be extremely disturbing to you as a father of four girls - as it was to myself, a father of three.

Consensus in the international press now seems to be centering upon the notion that 30 years of prosperity and fast growth have caused Chinese society to come unhinged from it's moral and ethical underpinnings. 

In addition, bizarre legal rulings have allowed accident victims to sue their Good Samaritan rescuers by accusing the Good Samaritan of actually causing the accident - as has occurred in several recent, highly publicized cases.

My question to you, Minister, is: how much responsibility does our nation of Canada bear, through it's trade relations with China, for the corruption and moral degradation that has now culminated in this unspeakable tragedy? Through our trade relations with China are we merely giving more drugs to the addict?

My second question: on what ethical grounds can we continue to do business with a Government that has created and encouraged the conditions necessary for such evil to occur?

I should add that the event itself is not unique - only the fact that it was captured on video. No sooner had Wang Yeu passed away last Friday then another story appeared in the Chinese press almost identical in nature.

Add to this the ongoing abuses of human rights, jailing of dissidents, persecution of religious groups, and brutal suppression of demonstrators and you must agree that China has become a serious burden to it's trading partners.

Minister, I implore you, please issue a response to this tragedy in keeping with the morals, ethics, and traditions that have made Canadian society one of the best and safest in the world. 

We treasure our children. How can we remain trade partners with a society as heartless and cruel as that which the Government of China has created?

The people of Canada need to know that you are aware of this issue and that it matters to you. 

They further need to know who they are doing business with whenever they buy something that has 'Made In China' on the label.

Minister Fast, I thank you for your time and look forward to your reply.

Best Regards,