The powers that be in the PRC are paying people in Dongzhou to change their stories about the killings.  They are inducing villagers to say that people were killed by the homemade fire bombs wielded by the crowd, instead to by shots from the police.  But the fact that the bribery has turned up on the front page of the New York Times puts a bit of a kink in that media strategy.   Back to the drawing board boys.   What form will the lies take next?

    Insterestigly, the Washington Post runs a story today on how people in China are discussing the killings indirectly on the internet.  A disussion of a short story about a police killing in 1926 has provided cover for Chinese web users to express their views on the Dongzhou incident.  It is obvious that news of the assault is spreading through China, allowing citizens there to watch how their government is trying to evade and cover up.   The regime puts a lot of effort into blocking and filtering the web, but the spreading news of the Dongzhou killings demonstrates the limits of state control and coercion.

    Here’s what one Chinese person had to say:

"I learned about it on the 7th," one bulletin board user wrote Monday
of the Dongzhou shooting. "Some day, I believe, this incident will be
exposed and condemned. Let us pay tribute to the villagers . . . and
silently mourn the dead."

    And the best way to pay the dead tribute is to remember them.

    Remember Dongzhou.