You can read more about Nie Shu Bin’s 聂树斌 case here. Not mentioned is the hero who played a major role in Nie’s exoneration Zheng Cheng Yue 郑承玥. As recent as 12 years ago, I could still watch such investigative documentaries in China. That’s how Zheng could get interviews with the media. No TV station would dare to interview whistleblowers anymore. Even a police chief like Zheng Cheng Yue could get tortured and his family punished by familial association 连坐, a practice that goes back thousands of years.
Every time I see news like this, I can’t help feeling a deep sense of sorrow and indignation. Do courts in developed countries make mistakes? Of course they do, but when questioned or audited, glaring mistakes and cases of miscarried justice are exposed and amid public outrage, the perpetrators punished. Do we see that happening in China?
So why was Nie Shu Bin so hastily convicted and executed? Insider’s rumour had it that his blood type matched that of a certain leader waiting for a kidney donor. Meanwhile, people in China just servile and try to stay out of trouble, hoping and praying that they won’t end up like Nie Shu Bin.