On April 20, a post on Tianya Community Online ignited heated discussions on Chinese media and blogs. The post disclosed part of a training handbook for city management teaching its officers how to beat people without leaving any evidence.

“Leave No Blood After Beating”

The post titled “Shocking! City management manual.” quoted the manual, “Not to leave blood on the offender’s face or wounds on the offender’s body. Make sure no one is around. (The beating) should be done in one continuous movement that is short, agile, and leaves no room for a victim’s response. It must be clean and well-executed and never hesitate to use your whole strength.” In three days the post received over 4,000 responses.

According to Beijing Times, the official title of the manual is “City Management Law Enforcement Practical Manual,” which is written and edited by the City Management Training Material Development Division under the Beijing Municipal Management Bureau and Beijing Municipal Work Management Committee Training Center. The Manual was published in 2006 by the National Academy of Education Administration.

Robbery by order

Shuai Jianhua, a street vender in Shenzhen has experienced raids by city management officers many times. Shuai told VOA that the city management officers are using a more subtle and cunning method now. It only takes them five minutes to finish robbing a vendor. The media have no time to catch and report the incident.

“I once met a captain of the city management division. I asked him why the officers behave like this. He told me that they were not meant to confiscate, but to take away goods from street vendors like me and it is an order from the top,” said Shuai, “It’s robbery, public robbery.”

Hidden identity

According to Shuai, the officers would beat those who resisted until they were injured or even dead. Many street vendors live in terror everyday. He said the conduct of the officers in Shenzhen is worse than those described in the Manual.

“For example, the authority transfers management officers and civil police from a different district to our district. Basically no one in our district knows them or can recognize their faces. They don’t wear uniforms but non-official clothes. They wear helmets and carry iron clubs when they rob. The license plates of the cars they drive are either covered or repainted.”

City management is target of public anger

Professor Zhu Lijia of China’s National Academy of Education Administration told VOA that the quality of the management officers is not uniform. Zhu said that in recent years, there have been incidents of officers abusing their power and stirring up discontent between the public and government.

“The management officers have been the target of public criticism. Both the government and the public have been exerting pressure on them. The city management wants to reform them as well. However, the city management should train the officers to respect civil rights, to serve the people and to protect the order of society instead of teaching them skills to punish or beat the general public,” said Professor Zhu.

Manual is for 'internal reference only'

In the report from Beijing Times, the Beijing City Management Bureau and management officers from different districts claimed they have never see this manual.
 
The Bureau issued an official statement on April 22 claiming it has been training its officers since 2005. It entrusted other institutes to invite expert written training materials for the officers, and one of them was the referenced Manual. After the final editing, the Bureau found some phrases and words improper. To avoid misinterpretation, the book was denied publication and made for internal reference only. The Bureau denied having distributed the book to the officers for their training.

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