After a student dies mysteriously.

Welcome to China Uncensored. I'm Chris Chappell.

You don't see protests like this  very often in mainland China.

That's from the city of Chengdu.

Students outside of the No. 49  High School there were chanting  

“We want the truth.” It wasn't long until  Chinese police “handled” the situation.

The crowd is demanding the truth of what happened  to a 17-year-old student at their school.  

They think authorities at the school and in  the government are covering up how he died.

The student, named Lin Weiqi, was  found dead at their school on May 9.  

His mother posted this on social media.

“On May 9th at 9 o'clock, I received a notice  from the school that my son had passed away.  

The school simply informed me that the cause  of death was a fall from the corridor…” 

“Now, the school is not letting the  parents in to see what happened...  

The school immediately dismissed all the class  students and warned them to keep silent...

School authorities had given her practically  no information about her son's death.  

Only that he had “fallen”.

According to Radio Free Asia, “Local  media mentioned the matter was highly  

sensitive in Chengdu, and all media  reporters were told not to speak up.”

Huh, that's not suspicious.

Then this photo began to  circulate on social media.  

It's Lin's mother holding a picture of  him outside the gates of the high school.

More people began to pay attention to her  sad story, wanting to know more details.  

And they watched how the school did  nothing to shed light on the situation.

His mother then posted, “Last night at 9 o'clock  the police station told us what happened...  

We learned that by the time the ambulance  had arrived at 8:30, my son had no heartbeat,  

and he was taken straight to the  funeral home instead of the hospital.”

“The first thing we did was report this to the  police. The police said they would investigate...  

They showed me surveillance footage of that  day, except only the incident was not caught  

on camera... I read this kind of news many times  but never thought it would happen to me one day.”

How odd that the one time surveillance  footage would actually be helpful,  

it's not available. Normally, Chinese  citizens are under constant surveillance.

But the incident was getting  more and more public attention.

The next afternoon, authorities rushed to  release a public notice to address the incident.

It reads, “On May 9th at around 6:40 PM, a  student fell from the top floor corridor. The  

school immediately called the emergency number.  By the time an ambulance arrived to investigate,  

the student already had no pulse. The Public  Security Bureau has launched an investigation.  

The school expresses its deepest condolences.”

So...still no further details on how he died.

What's weird is, the nearest hospital  is less than 10 minutes from the school.

According to the mother's social media  post, the ambulance arrived at 8:30,  

just before she was notified about  the death at 9 o 'clock that evening.  

But that means the ambulance didn't arrive  until nearly two hours after Lin fell.

And “When asked about the two-hour delay in  telling Lin's parents of their son's death,  

the school's safety director Mi Ping said  that after finding the body at about 7pm,  

all of the form teachers were  called to help identify him  

but the process took a long time due  to the injuries he had suffered.”

And that just raised more  suspicion among the public.

With so many missing details, rumors began to  spread suggesting the student had been pushed  

off the building, or that teachers or students  had bullied him into taking his own life.  

Others began to question if authorities  were covering up something even worse.

Then early the next morning, the 'Chengdu Chenghua  

Education Branch' issued a statement on  Weibo—attempting to dispel all the rumors.

“Lin died from a high fall according to the  climbing traces, footprints and fingerprints  

at the scene. It was determined to be a  personal act, criminal cases were excluded,  

and no corporal punishment or insults to students  were found in the school...The student was not  

found to be bullied at school...The student  committed suicide due to personal problems.”

Yes. He killed himself, completely unprompted—even  

though no students ever bullied him, and  school authorities never punished him.  

It just happens, people. And that's why  state media are not allowed to report on it.

Then state-run Xinhua said the reason there  was no surveillance footage is actually that  

“[Police officers] had taken away the recording  for investigation [as it was] key evidence.”

Yes, key evidence...of nothing  suspicious having happened.

State media also claimed “Lin's  father had watched the complete  

recording on Monday morning  in the company of a lawyer.”

Meanwhile, articles began  circulating on the Chinese internet,  

saying the issue had been resolved  between the school and Lin's parents,  

and they ultimately signed and  agreed to have the body cremated.

But, that might not be true. According  to Lin's parents. His mother said,

“I solemnly declare here that I do  not agree with the statement issued  

by Chenghua District this morning. There are many  questions about the content of their statement!  

I will continue to fight the police and the  school to give me the truth. I want to speak  

with my son's teachers, and I want to see all  the videos! I do not agree with this result.”

Which brings us back to the protests.  Students gathered at the school holding  

white flowers to mourn Lin Weiqi as they chanted,  

calling for the truth. And videos like this caused  more anger at the way authorities handled it.

But this protest seems to have brought too much  attention—which I'll explain after the break.

Welcome back. After this protest video went viral,  

authorities had a problem. Not just the problem  of how to handle Lin Weiqi's mysterious death, but  

also how to handle large numbers of young people  protesting, and spreading those videos online.

Their solution? Blame foreign forces and Hong Kong  pro-democracy groups for instigating the protests.

Some Chinese netizens were quick  to side with local authorities,  

and jump on the “hostile  foreign forces” bandwagon.

Here are some examples:

“Losers, quit the act. To think you flew all  the way from Guangdong and Hong Kong with your  

broken Mandarin speech and cameras, wearing  masks so no one will recognize who you are.  

You have some nerve to come  to Chengdu and make a scene.”

Yes, this guy thinks that Hong Kong  protesters flew to Chengdu to “make a scene.”

“I can't take it anymore! Open your eyes everyone,  don't fall into the trap of the foreign forces!  

Notice how their chanting seems staged!  Not to mention everyone was able to hold  

flowers and cameras, there was even a girl who  was assigned to cause a scene in the video!  

They obviously pushed the girl and  made it seem like the police's fault,  

when they were actually trying to save  her! It's too obvious, everybody WAKE UP!”

Yeah, wake up, sheeple! Don't you realize  communist authorities are the good guys?!

And then there's doxxing. This post  identifies a woman in the crowd,  

and claims she's a friend of someone  who worked at the local US consulate.  

The consulate that was closed down last year. And  somehow she made $300 million dollars from this?!

Wow, I wish hostile foreign forces would pay *me*  300 million dollars just to attend a protest.  

I've been funded by hostile foreign forces  for years, and they've never given me a cent!

Now you'd think posts like this would not get  much traction online, because they're too stupid.

And yet, the provincial cyber police  just doubled down on the message.

They wrote, “The peace and tranquility of  the motherland today are not easy to come by.  

Generations of revolutionary martyrs exchanged  their blood and lives for national independence,  

and generations of Chinese sons and daughters  have used their youth and sweat to fight for  

prosperity and strength. No one is allowed to  destroy it. We will never sit back and watch  

the damage to national security and development  interests. We will never allow hostile forces  

to undermine the security and stability of the  country and the peaceful life of the people.  

We will never allow the color revolutions to  occur on this land. Anyone who wants to carry  

out such a situation, try, you will be hit  head-on! #Vigilance Against Color Revolution”

Yeah, hashtag vigilance  against color revolution—which  

no one was actually suggesting  was happening, except for you.

But if anyone knows how dangerous a revolution  can be, it's China's revolutionary martyrs  

who exchanged their blood and  lives for national independence.

And now it's time for me to  answer a question from you,  

a fan who supports the show through  the crowdfunding website, Patreon.

Lucien Furneaux says, “I am interested in knowing  more about 'gain of function' research and how the  

CCP had been using it in regards to Covid 19,  and how they are continuing to implement it.”

Good question, Lucien. The simple answer is,  the Wuhan Institute of Virology was doing  

gain of function research on  coronaviruses before Covid-19 spread.  

According to one of their funding  proposals, “gain of function”  

meant scientists there were experimenting  to see if they could make coronaviruses  

more contagious—and then use this knowledge  in the future to help *stop* global pandemics.

Hindsight, of course, is 2020.

Thanks for your question.

But speaking of, there's more and more consensus  that the most likely origin of Covid-19  

was an accidental lab leak from Wuhan. So if  you'd like us to do an episode about this,  

leave your comments below, and we just might do  it for you. It will get demonetized by YouTube.  

Which is why your support  on Patreon is so important.  

Go to Patreon.com/ChinaUncensored  to learn more. The link is below.

I'm Chris Chappell. Thanks for watching.