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posted by janrinok on Thursday August 04 2016, @08:24PM   Printer-friendly
from the now-that-is-a-surprise dept.

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

As Tim Cushing wrote a few months back, recording the police is a complex and contentious issue in the US. But what about in China? Given the increasing clampdown on the Internet world, it's pretty easy to guess that the Chinese authorities wouldn't take too kindly to members of the public trying to hold the police to account in this way. Easy to guess -- and yet wrong, according to this story in the South China Morning Post (SCMP):

Chinese residents can now record the actions of police ­officers as long as it does not stop them from doing their job.

The article provides a little background to this rather surprising news:

The move is expected to help keep police in check but there were no details on how it will be enforced.

And this is why some of them clearly need to be controlled better:

Environmental scientist Lei, 29, died in police custody in May just 50 minutes after he was ­approached by plainclothes ­officers for an identification check in his neighbourhood.

At first, police said he died of a heart attack, but an autopsy report this month said he died of suffocation from gastric fluid.

The public blamed his death on police handling, with two case officers arrested on suspicion of dereliction of duty.

Source: TechDirt


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 05 2016, @03:04PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 05 2016, @03:04PM (#384494)

    Not true in the UK - sysadmin has to ask permission before accessing user data.