Government employee accused of starving mother to death

Source: China Hush

(From Netease and GZ Daily) A post titled “Wuping County government employee starves 90some years old mother to death” made a huge stir on the Internet on Dec 1st. The post claimed that the granny’s son Zhong, being an government cadre, starved his mother to death due to family arguments. The post also came with a video taken 2 months ago showing a literally bony granny lying on a bamboo mat, pale and weak. Party discipline supervision department opened investigation into the case and concluded that there were no signs of mistreatment by the son who, by the way was only contract staff of the bureau.

According to the post, the video was taken before the National Day (Oct 1st) in a storage room. The old woman seen lying on the bed with her pointing bone legs was 90 years old before she died. She had 5 sons and 1 daughter, but 2 of the sons were given away due to the early death of her husband. Now she lived with the accused forth son.

Video: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzI3NTIzMDgw.html

The post exposed that at the end of September, the police and officials from Woman’s Federation paid a visit to the granny’s when someone reported that the old woman was going to starve to death. Ambulance soon followed. Diagnose from the hospital showed that the granny was suffering from severe malnutrition which caused multiple organ failures. She died in early October this year.

According to the accusing post, the forth son started working in a state-owned enterprise after graduation, and now became a branch-level government cadre. At the end of 2010, granny’s oldest son died, the forth son got inside information that the his mother’s house would face demolishment and thus would get a good amount of compensation, he then filed a charge against his eldest sister-in-law in the name of his mother in order to take over oldest brother’s inheritance. The charge was null as the granny died.

Mr Luo from Bureau of Economy and Trade for Wuping County revealed that the accused son was Zhong Zhaohong(钟兆洪), 56 years old ordinary staff for the county’s small and medium-sized enterprise service center, which was affiliated to the bureau, but Zhong himself was not government employee, nor was he member of the Party.

In the afternoon of Dec 2nd, reporter got in touch with Zhong Zhaohong, who denied all accusations from the post and said he was defamed by his oldest brother’s daughter. Zhong said he has been taking care of his mother for 37 years himself. He didn’t  request niece Zhong Yizhen to help in since she has already burdened with her father’s dialysis fee every month. After his eldest brother died from uremia, he requested the niece to share the responsibility of taking care of her grandmother by contributing part of her father’s house property. August this year, he sued his eldest sister-in-law in the name of his mother to fight for partial inheritance of his eldest brother. “My big brother’s house is over 500 sqm, now that he passed away, our mother should be entitled to part of his inheritance, that is not too much to ask. I have been supporting mother for so many years, now they should share the responsibility too.”

The suit opened on Nov 30th, then next day the post of “starving mother” went viral over the Internet. Zhong said this was his niece’s conspiracy to seize all house property of her father, including the part that belongs to grandmother.

“My niece accused me of trying to seize my brother’s house, that is a joke. I didn’t have any right to my brother’s inheritance at the first place, how do I seize it? She obviously is defaming me through exaggerating stuffs in the post so as to influence the judge. You can go and ask around to see if I am a renowned good son in my neighborhood.”

Zhong explained that it is true that his mother is bony as twig, it is only normal for a 90 years old woman.  He added that his mother has been suffering from Alzheimer’s since 2002, which brought down her weight even more. The niece is in mechanical equipment business in Shenzhen and she is a billionaire.

Reporter then interviewed a few residents in the same village, who confirmed that Zhong was a filial son and his mother was sick and sometimes scolded at people for no reason, sometimes couldn’t find her way home.

Read more at China Hush