Violent protests after the death of Pucheng student

The teenager’s death has sparked violent protests in a city in northwest China, a BBC-verified video has confirmed.

In videos shared on social media, protesters can be seen throwing objects at police and officers beating some protesters in Pucheng, Shaanxi province.

Authorities said the teenager died Jan. 2 in an accident at his school dormitory. But after his death, accusations that it was a cover-up began to circulate on social media.

Protests erupted soon after and lasted for several days before they were apparently quelled earlier this week. Since then, the BBC has seen no other evidence of protest in Pucheng.

Public demonstrations are not uncommon in China, but authorities have been particularly sensitive to them since the 2022 White Paper protests against Covid policies, which rarely criticized the Chinese Communist Party and President Xi Jinping.

The state media is silent about the protests in Puchen. Any clips or mentions of the demonstrations have been largely censored on Chinese social media, as is common with incidents the authorities consider sensitive.

But several videos were leaked from China and posted on X.

The BBC confirmed the videos were filmed at Pucheng Vocational Education Center and had not found earlier versions online before reporting on the outbreak of protests in the past few days.

When contacted by the BBC, a spokesman for the Pucheng government’s publicity department denied there were any protests. There was no response when we called an official handling media queries.

In a statement released earlier this week, local authorities said the teenager, surnamed Dang, was in his third year at an education center in Pucheng.

Before his death, Dang was woken up in the night by other students talking in his dormitory, according to their statement. He got into an argument and altercation with the boy, which was broken up by a school staff member.

Later in the evening, another student found his body at the foot of the dormitory.

The statement described it as “an accident where a student fell from a height at school”. It added that the police had conducted an investigation and an autopsy, and “this has been ruled out as a criminal matter at this time.”

But within days, accusations swirled online that there was more to the story and that the school and authorities were covering up the truth. One account, without evidence, claimed that Dang killed himself after being bullied by a boy with whom he had previously fought.

Unverified statements from his family are circulating, which claim that the injuries on Dang’s body do not match the authorities’ version of events and that they were not allowed to examine his body for a long time.

The accusations appear to have angered many in Pucheng, sparking protests that have drawn at least hundreds of people.

Bullying has become a highly sensitive issue in China in recent years, and past student deaths have sparked protests. Last month, a Chinese court sentenced him to long prison terms two teenagers who killed a classmate.

There are also videos posted on X on Monday, which the BBC confirmed were filmed at Pucheng Vocational Training Centre, showing people mourning the teenager’s death. They laid flowers and offerings at the entrance of the school, and performed a traditional mourning ritual by throwing papers from the roof of the school building.

Other videos circulating online showed protesters, many of them young, storming the building and clashing with police, shouting “give us the truth”.

One verified clip shows a school official confronted by screaming protesters who push him. Others show destroyed offices in the compound and protesters breaking down a barricade at the entrance to the school.

On the other side, protesters throw objects such as traffic cones at groups of retreating police; and officers detaining people by beating them with batons. Some protesters are seen with bloody heads and faces.

There is little information on what happened next, but reports on social media suggest a much larger police presence in Pucheng in recent days, and no further demonstrations have been reported.

The authorities also urged the public not to “create rumours, believe rumours, and spread rumours”.