Comment
Officer drinking to death shouldn't be named martyr
By Wu Yan (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-12-16 09:49
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Xie Feiyong, leader of a traffic police detachment in Shenzhen, really knew how to care for his subordinates. He recently invited his officers to dinner and after one died of drinking, his detachment reported the officer as dying in the line of duty and named him as a candidate for the honor of a martyr.
When questioned by the press, Xie said: "There was nothing unusual about it."
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Xie believed that drinking is part of an officer's job. As he said: "For our work, we must maintain good relations with village heads, we often went for a drink with them. There is nothing wrong about it."
However, he had probably forgotten that as law enforcement officers, they needed to follow strict rules for their behavior.
For example, who had paid for the dinners hosted by the village heads? Were they paid using public funds or their own money? Was it correct for the officers to dine and wine with village heads from their own police districts?
This was not the first such incident. In February last year, an official in Henan province died after drinking in a recreational center. The local government posthumously named him as an "Outstanding Communist Party Member".
It seems the superior officials take good care of the dead. But in reality, they were trying to cover up some embarrassing entertainment activities and corruption practice. Otherwise, more people could have been implicated in scandals if the families of the dead were not appeased and decided to make the cases known to more people.
Xie probably believed he could decide who had died in the line of duty, without following rules. If so, he was not alone. Such mentality and practice have been common in some places.
It pains people to be aware of such thoughts and behaviors. Those real martyrs would have never tolerated such phenomena if they were alive.
(Excerpts of a commentary that appeared in Beijing Times on Dec 15.)
