Report: Police detain 10 parents who lost children in China earthquake

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Police in southwest China have detained 10 parents who were protesting the deaths of their children in schools that collapsed in the country's devastating earthquake, a US-funded radio station reported Wednesday. Radio Free Asia said the 10 were detained after several hundred parents staged a sit-in Tuesday outside government offices in Deyang city. They were calling on the government to release the findings of a promised investigation into the collapse of schools in the May 12 earthquake, which decimated southwest Sichuan province, killing nearly 70,000 people. The collapse of large numbers of schools in the quake has angered parents, many of whom lost their only child, and has led to rare protests at a time when government is trying to suppress expressions of public discontent ahead of next month's Olympic Games in Beijing. The Ministry of Education has promised to rebuild the schools, but no one involved in the alleged shoddy construction has been held to public account.