Two elderly people are in hospital in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan after drinking pesticide in an attempted double suicide protest outside government offices, officials and bystanders said this week.
The protest took place on Monday, but wasn't reported by Chinese media at the time. Suicide protests are a politically sensitive topic likely to be banned in the country's state-run media.
"They are in the hospital receiving treatment," an officer who answered the phone at the Puxin police station in Sichuan's Xichong county told RFA's Mandarin Service.
"They're in the county hospital. The government will deal with this situation," the officer said.
"They definitely [drank pesticide], and they were given emergency treatment at the time," he said, adding that he had no information about their medical status.
A business owner located on the same street as the Xichong county government buildings said the protest had shaken up the neighborhood.
"This is a huge thing; they took poison," he said. "It must have been a protest over injustice."
Photos posted to Twitter-like sites showed an elderly couple lying apparently unconscious on the ground by a metal barrier outside some large gates, with police and bystanders nearby.
Suicide protest
The man was named as Li Benyun in unconfirmed tweets, which also said police had earlier detained the couple's son, Li Yongkui, a local businessman who had got into a dispute with a local official over the land on which his factory stood.
The couple had downed a bottle of organic phosphate pesticide in a bid to commit suicide in protest at their son's detention, as well as a violent attack by hired thugs on the father and son, the tweets said.
An official who answered the phone at the Xichong county government offices said the government was currently investigating the incident.
But he declined to say whether the elderly couple had survived.
"You will be able to see the response at the appropriate time," the official said.
An employee who answered the phone at the Xichong County People's Hospital declined to answer questions about the couple on Thursday.
"We don't know the exact situation of every patient here," the employee said.
"It has been our National Day holiday in the past few days, and there's no one on duty upstairs, so I can't find out for you."
Tweets reporting the protest on popular microblogging services were retweeted thousands of times, garnering tens of thousands of comments and "candle" emoticons, as well as calls for more information and an official response to the incident.
Seeking redress
Rights lawyers say disadvantaged groups have no real channels through which to secure judicial redress in disputes with the government, driving people at the lowest levels of society to despair.
The ruling Chinese Communist Party has kept up a "stranglehold" on petitioners and rights activists in recent years, subjecting thousands to arbitrary detention in labor camps and unofficial "black jails," rights groups say.
China's army of petitioners—many of whom pursue complaints against the government over forced evictions, wrongful detention, physical attacks, and deaths in custody—are increasingly targeted by police and officials for punishment.
Many of those who pursue official complaints against government wrongdoing in their hometowns have done so to no avail for several years; some for decades. Many are middle-aged or elderly people with little or no income.
Reported by Xin Lin for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.