A Stitch in Haste

As Officer Barbrady might say: "This is nothing out of the unusual -- people deliberately break their own necks all the time."

Chinese investigators have concluded that an activist who said he was paralyzed after assailants broke his neck inflicted the injury on himself, his son said Thursday.
...
Fu Xiancai was injured three weeks after German public television broadcast an interview in which he said he had been threatened and beaten for complaining about inadequate compensation for relocated residents.

He says that on June 8, he was called into the Zigui County Public Security Bureau in Hubei province and criticized for his television appearance. He was attacked after leaving the police station, he said.

On Wednesday, the head of the security bureau's forensics department and another county official told Fu Bing [Fu Xiancai's son] that experts concluded the injuries were self-inflicted, Fu Bing said.

Every try to punch yourself in the face? Try attempting to break your own neck.

These Communist brutes aren't even trying to concoct a decent cover-up. And of course they don't have to. They have total control over their own media, not to mention collaborators from media and web services in the West, and fellow governments, such as ours, that view China not as a cancer upon humanity but as a "trading partner" (not to mention that new get-out-of-human-rights-free card, "trusted ally in the War on Terror").

Incidentally:

Fu Xiancai underwent an operation last month that may enable him to use a wheelchair, but doctors have said he will not walk again.

Hopefully all those neat-o new skyscrapers China is building are wheelchair-accessible.

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Another Officer Barbrady favorite: "Move along people, nothing to see here..."

New Chinese guidelines identify specific acts of torture for which police can be prosecuted in an apparent attempt to rein in such abuses.

The guidelines, viewed Thursday on government Web sites, describe practices ranging from beating to starvation. Though illegal, torture is believed to be used widely by police and government officials who rely heavily on coerced confessions to prove criminal cases.
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The new provisions, dated Wednesday, are less than emphatic, merely stating conditions under which cases can be opened -- usually only if the abuse results in injury or death. No punishments were specified.

Silly Communist police -- don't they know the rule that it's only illegal if you leave a mark?

Well, they know it now.