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Sars rioters behind bars
27/05/2003 10:58 - (SA)
Beijing - Six people have been sentenced to between one and three-and-a-half years in jail for inciting a riot against a Sars quarantine facility in central Henan province, state press reported on Tuesday.
The Intermediate Court of Linzhou city jailed Yang Xilai and five others on charges of violations of social order and also hit them with fines of up to 5 200 yuan ($650), the People's Court Daily said.
This is a huge sum in provincial China where the average annual net income of rural households was just 2 366 yuan in 2001, the latest figures available.
The convictions are the second batch reported from a spate of riots that occured throughout China at the height of the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in late April.
Locals in many areas expressed fears that the government was deliberately endangering rural areas by putting isolation compounds in areas with no recorded cases of the respiratory disease, and rampaged against it.
Last week, six people in northern Hebei province were sentenced to up to five years in prison for inciting an April 24 riot at a quarantine centre in Xiong county.
The tough sentencing appeared to reflect the government's resolve to maintain social order while combating the disease which has killed more than 300 people and infected more than 5 300.
Henan province, home to millions of Aids sufferers, has only reported 15 cases of Sars.
Yang and the others decided to take action after they were informed of an April 26 decision by the Linzhou government to set up Sars isolation centres in several areas of the city.
On April 27 they sent out a notice to inform other people in the area and instigated a gathering of 300 people who surrounded a disease prevention station where an isolation unit was to be set up, the newspaper said.
They blocked roads with bricks and garbage before attacking the centre and breaking windows, furniture and communciations equipment.
Rioters in other Sars disturbances include an April 28 riot in Chengde city, Hebei, when up to 500 villagers overturned an ambulance and stoned a hospital after they suspected a Sars patient was being transferred to the facility.
On May 6 and 7, more than 300 people rioted against the construction of a Sars observation centre in Tianjin city's central Hongqiao district.
Other riots occurred in eastern Zhejiang province.
- AFX
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