Frequent assaults on policemen get concerns
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2005-10-08 21:15

As assaults on policemen get increasingly frequent, Chinese scholars call for adopting comprehensive measures to tackle the situation.

The latest statistics of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security show 23 policemen sacrificed their lives and 1,803 others got injured while performing their duty in the first half of this year owing to violent reactions while they carried out arrests, handling affairs that disrupt public order and enforcing traffic rules and regulations.

On April 22, policeman Peng Heping and some security personnel in east China's Anhui Province headed to a kiln site to stop fighting between two groups of people. Although he had made known to the people in the fighting he was a policeman upon arrival, one group of mobs stroke him with iron bars, sticks and bricks on the head and killed him.

On May 30, Yunnan policeman Yuan Dong and a colleague were assigned to arrect a checkpoint on the highway to stop and seize several robbers of motorcycles. And robbers stabbed Yuan to death.

On September 9, policeman Tan Jianxi in central-south Hunan Province was besieged and beaten by some 30 villagers when he was probing an underground gambling operation. Two other policemen who came to his aid were, too, beaten by the villagers. After that, several hundred people assaulted the local police station and injured five policemen.

Ruan Qilin, a professor with the China University of Political Science and Law, said attacks on policemen fall into three major categories. In the first category, perpetrators tend to resort to violence, attacking common folks as well as policemen. In the second category, perpetrators attack policemen to vent their frustration over the legal establishments. In the third category, perpetrators might have use violence to protest against what they regard as unjust law enforcement.

"We should adopt varying approaches to tackle different circumstances," acknowledged Ruan.

The police force should strive to foster an image of being just and efficient and build a harmonious relationship with the general public. That's the premise for winning the support of the public and a way to reduce the cases violent resistance in their law enforcement.

Wu Heping, a spokesman with Ministry of Public Security, called on the public to lodge their complaints over the law enforcement activities of the policemen through legal means.

Meanwhile, Prof. Wang Shizhou from the law school of elite Peking University, said while ensuring policemen exercise their authority within the confines of law, the society should also foster ideas to respect and protect the policemen.

"Respecting the policemen is respecting the state authority. Protecting the policemen is a means to protect people themselves. Supervising the policemen is to ensure that public right of the nation is not abused," said Wang.

Wang and a few other scholars suggested amendments should be added to the existing laws or legislative and judicial interpretations be made to specifically outlaw and increase penalty over assaults on policeman.