China: A citizen campaign to reveal the forgotten dead  · Global Voices
Bob Chen

从车上下来的高举冲锋枪的警察高喊“把手举起来，原地不要动”这个只有大片中才有的场景让我有些不知所措。
In his blog, Li Peifeng so recalled his encounter with the police in Si-chuan. No smuggling, no robbery, all he was doing is simple – he was volunteering. But his story is no less exciting and hair-raising than any thriller. He was chased by Chinese police.
A covered fact
As the anniversary of Si-chuan Earthquake, the devastating disaster that claimed over 80000 on May, 12 last year is approaching, China has to pick up the heavy, heartrending topic again. But for many parents whose children were buried in rubble, their nightmare has never gone away for the entire year.
The government failed to publish a complete list of the victims in Si-chuan earthquake. There are only cold numbers of death toll while their names, age, and reasons of death remain unknown.  In particular, the names of student victims are seen as a top secret.
Los Angles Times explained,
The possibility that corruption might have been involved in the building of schools is the most politically sensitive aspect of the earthquake post-mortem.
According to an official announcement last year, over 6000 students died at the earthquake. Schools collapsed at an extraordinary high rate compared to other buildings standing nearby. In Beichuan, the county middle school had its two floors sunk into the ground.
Netizens and bloggers, scrutinizing pictures of the relic, found that the wreckage exposed the scarcity of steel girders, which should have been a major supporting component.
Premier Wen Jiabao, inspecting the area devastated, has avowed to tell the public who should be responsible for the shoddy works. But the promise has not yet been fulfilled. Though the recently released National Human Rights Action Plan has emphasized on a state effort to register names of victims, Blogger Ai Xiaoming felt frustrated,
5·12地震过去即将一周年，人们遗憾地看到，到目前为止，尚未有任何一份有关灾区垮塌学校建筑质量的专家调查报告得到公布；公众不仅难以查询到某一学校垮塌原因的详细信息和鉴定结论，而且也不了解这一调查过程到底持续了多久、经过了怎样的程序、是由哪些单位以及责任人实施的.
校舍倒塌，除了天災，究竟有沒有”豆腐渣工程”的人禍？哪些有？哪些沒有？遇難學生的家長需要一個答案，但政府卻再三推搪，連最基本的遇難學生確切人數，至今都無法公佈。
The blogger also noted that the public propaganda had already set the tone about who is to blame:
四川地方媒体数家报纸在2008年6月25日同一天登出了同样内容的报道，标题为 《地震是毁房罪魁 幸存者应理性看未来>。
Citizen volunteers, a vulnerable new force
江油市局的警察曾拿着打印的我的照片到旅馆，跟老板说“这个人是一个犯人，看见他的话通知我们”，我可不想再被他们连夜送往“到了你就知道了”的地方了。
—–Volunteer Yang Licai , ‘investigation diary’.
What the government has failed to accomplish, citizens were going to take over. Ai Weiwei, a Beijing artist known for co-designing the “Bird's Nest” Olympic stadium, launched a small project that sends volunteers to Si-chuan for investigation. They knocked at the doors one after another, visited families with victims, and tried to interview school officials.
In this way, the volunteers have managed to detail as many as 6000 names of dead students.
However, it was so costly a process. Ai Weiwei's predecessor Tan Zuoren was the first victim of the government's effort to prevent such investigation. The Los Angles Times reported,
Tan Zuoren, a literary editor and environmentalist who was creating an archive of children killed in collapsing schools, was arrested in March 2009 on charges of subverting state authority, according to Amnesty International. It said his dog was stabbed and his computer stolen in a pattern of harassment leading to his arrest.
Tan Zuoren's project kicked off in February. He appealed to people on the internet and mustered an army of self-organized volunteers. Asia Times reported that
他的好友、四川作家冉雲飛感慨：”你是一個鬍子拉碴的堂*吉柯德，一些自詡聰明的人甚至不無暗諷你的大戰風車，但你依然故我，做著你的調查與努力。”
他被拘時，只有十五歲的小女兒在家，她說：”四五個人沖進來，有人穿著警服，有人沒有，他們出示了證件，然後抄家，然後帶走爸爸。爸爸一句話都沒有說。”
Ai Weiwei is determined to finish Tan's plan. In his blog, he published a batch of phone records that noted down how officials turned down his request of a complete list with names and schools of the killed students. The verbal fights between Ai and staff from a variety of departments are sometimes bitterly amusing. In most cases, Ai was redirected to some other bureaus. 150 phone calls were noted down. But no concrete answer was given
Later, Ai launched his long-term project. Hepublished a notice about his campaign on his blog
2008年12月15日，我们开始了“5.12汶川地震死亡学生”的调查整理工作，在多次向四川省政府民政，公安和教育机构要求公布死亡学生人数及名单,遭到拒绝的情况下，通过网络信息线索，对地震重灾区域进行了实地走访调查。在2009年5月12日的地震周年到来之前，完善这份“汶川地震死亡学生”名单。拒绝死亡，尊重生命，寄托哀思，告慰亡灵。