Yang Jia (1980)

Yang Jia (Chinese: 杨佳; born c. 1980)cite news|url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/2627001/Chinese-cop-killer-becomes-internet-hero.html|title=Chinese cop-killer becomes internet hero|last=Moore|first=Malcolm|date=27 August 2008|publisher=Daily Telegraph|accessdate=2008-08-27] is a Chinese citizen who has been sentenced to death for murdering six Shanghai police officers with a knife. He has received international media attention for the public sympathy accorded to him in China, where, according to exiled writer Ma Jian, Yang has become "a sort of national hero."cite news|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/08/china.chineseliterature|title=Playing with fire|last=Edemariam|first=Aida|date=8 August 2008|publisher=The Guardian|accessdate=2008-08-27]

Trial and verdict

Yang, a jobless 28-year old Beijing resident, was reported to have been arrested and interrogated by the Shanghai police in October 2007 for riding an unlicensed bicycle. He then sued the police for alleged maltreatment, to no avail.

In July 2008, Yang was arrested and accused of committing mass murder in a police station in Zhabei, a Shanghai suburb. According to Chinese authorities, on July 1 (the anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party), Yang threw molotov cocktails into the station before entering it and attacking unarmed officers with a knife, killing six. His trial was delayed on account of the 2008 Summer Olympics.cite news|url=http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hvhjshg0LQ4BB9Z9rPYtkBNjuIpgD92QORS80|title=Chinese defend accused police killer|last=Anna|first=Cara|date=27 August 2008|publisher=Associated Press|accessdate=2008-08-27]

On 27 August 2008, Yang was tried in a one-hour,cite news|url=http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/shdaily_sing.asp?id=372317|title=Man who killed 6 city cops gets death penalty|last=Xu|first=Angela|date=2 September 2008|publisher=Shanghai Daily|accessdate=2008-09-01] non-public procedure at the Shanghai No. 2 Intermediate People's Court. Four days later, the official news agency Xinhua announced that he had been found guilty of premeditated murder and received a death sentence,cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7591538.stm|title=Death for Shanghai police killer |date=1 September 2008|publisher=BBC News|accessdate=2008-09-01] as had previously been expected.

Media coverage and public opinion in China

Yang initially benefited from unusually sympathetic coverage in the state-controlled Chinese press. The "Beijing News" pointed out that Yang's appointed lawyer, Xie Youming, may have a conflict of interest because he is also a legal adviser for the city district that oversees the police station at issue. "Southern Weekend" published a long, sympathetic front-page story, while other Chinese papers hinted that Yang was wronged and demanded a fair trial. In the week leading up to the trial, though, the Shanghai media fell silent on the case and Chinese authorities increased efforts to censor Chinese internet coverage on the subject.

While there was initial public anger at the killings, Western media noted that discourse on Chinese internet forums and blogs soon became largely sympathetic to Yang, with many expressing suspicions that Yang might not receive a fair trial and that the police might want to cover up wrongdoings of their own. The "Daily Telegraph" quoted one Chinese blogger as praising Yang's "strong sense of the law" and another comparing him to Wu Song, a hero in Chinese literature. A message left on Yang's MySpace account was reported to have read: "You have done what most people want to do, but do not have enough courage to do."

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