This article from BBC News is so bizarre it is almost comical. A group of book salesmen were handing out pamphlets on a lecture at a primary school in Zhejiang Province. Somehow, a rumor spread that these men were actually a child trafficking gang trying to kidnap the students. Angry parents mobbed the five salesmen and beat them, according to reports from the local police. Eventually the police broke up the mob and sent the salesmen to a local hospital, but one of the men was beaten so severely he died soon afterwards.
Assuming this report is true – and reports emerging from local police in China should always be taken with a grain of salt – it highlights several underlying human rights issues. The first issue is media censorship and the likelihood of rumors leading to violence in China (remember the Guangdong toy factory?). Rumors are common worldwide, but in China they are particularly dangerous for two reasons: one, due to media censorship, people trust rumors more than they trust what they see in the media; and two, because local officials, particularly police, are so often corrupt, upon hearing a rumor people in China are likely to turn to vigilante justice, rather than calling the police.
China’s Communist Party sure has had an embarrassing couple of weeks. Starting with its Green Dam Youth Escort public relations disaster, followed by outrage over the Party’s 
