Wuhan: The lives claimed by Coronavirus in Wuhan are being rejected of the due lawsuits by the government, according to a report on 18th of September, 2020 by Deccan Chronicle.
The families of the victims are subjected to following grievances according to them:
- Lawsuits are being abruptly rejected.
- Dozens of people are facing pressure from authorities not to file or lodge a complaint.
- Lawyers are being warned against helping them.
The families accuse the Wuhan and Hubei provincial governments of concealing the outbreak when it first emerged there late last year. It also failed in alerting the public and manipulated the response which allowed the situation to worsen leading to the expansion of COVID-19 cases.
The Covid-19 pandemic has claimed the lives of nearly 3,900 in the city and over 900,000 globally so far.
Zhong Hanneng is a Pensioner in Wuhan whose son’s life has been claimed by Coronavirus said,
“They say the epidemic was a natural calamity. But these serious outcomes are man-made, and you need to find who’s to blame. “Our family is shattered. I can never be happy again.”
At least five lawsuits have been filed with the Wuhan Intermediate Court, said Zhang Hai, whose elderly father died of the virus and who has emerged as a voice for families of virus victims.
The families are each seeking around two million yuan ($295,000) in damages and a public apology. But the court has rejected suits on unspecified procedural grounds, said Yang Zhanqing, a veteran Chinese activist now in the US.
Yang is regulating two dozen lawyers in China who are secretly helping families. He said the rejections have come via unprecedented and short phone calls — not through official written explanations, as legally required. The reason being provided for the same is the avoidance of a paper trail.
Government’s Response
The government is still downplaying its responsibility and is glorifying the later triumph in suppressing the domestic infections.
President Xi Jinping, in a grand ceremony in Beijing last week, declared that the nation had passed an “extraordinary and historic test” through a swift and transparent response.
Another side of the Coin
Zhong has narrated the heartbreaking story of his son’s demise which had its cause in the government’s failure to inform the citizens as the primary reason. He said, in Peng Yi (his son’s) final moments “Did he call out ‘Mother’? ‘Father’? I don’t know.”
Zhang Hai believes his father was infected at a Wuhan hospital during treatment for an unrelated illness.
Now he is being intimidated by infiltration in his social media accounts and circulating disinformation about him.
“They know if I succeed in filing a case, many other families will sue, too,” he said.
With his initial suit in Wuhan rejected, Zhang filed recently at a higher, provincial-level court. Zhong, the elderly pensioner, plans the same.
Until some resolution is found to the situation, Zang plans to keep on appealing to higher levels till his voice is heard. “My father is my motivation,” he said.
