Bloggers push China to prosecute beating death

International Herald Tribune.

The government investigation, which was reported by state-run news outlets here, was touched off by bloggers in China who were outraged that a 41-year-old man had been fatally beaten while trying to use his cellphone to photograph a dispute between villagers and city inspectors.

There's been a tendency to downplay the potential political power of bloggers in China and other non-democratic countries, so this is a particularly interesting episode. I wonder if we will see more of this in the next year or so, and what impact that might have on the larger political structure?