Protesting parents in China dragged off

DUJIANGYAN, CHINA — Chinese police today dragged away more than 100 parents who were protesting the deaths of their children in poorly constructed schools that collapsed in last month’s earthquake.

The parents, many holding pictures of their dead children, were pulled down the street away from a courthouse in this resort city northwest of the Sichuan provincial capital of Chengdu.

“Why?” some of them yelled. “Tell us something,” they said as black-suited police wearing riot helmets yanked at them.

The parents had been kneeling in front of the courthouse yelling, “We want to sue!”

“The parents were here to give their report to the court,” said one police officer who refused to give his name. Calls to local police were not answered.

Accusations that students died in the May 12 earthquake because of shoddy school construction have galvanized anger and worried the government.

President Hu Jintao and other top leaders have been shown repeatedly on state television visiting children in makeshift schools.

The government says the May 12 earthquake destroyed 7,000 classrooms.

Many parents have accused contractors of cutting corners when building the classrooms, resulting in schools that could not withstand the 7.9-magnitude quake.

Some collapsed schools are surrounded by buildings still standing.

More than 270 students died when one school collapsed in Juyuan, near Dujiangyan. The Southern Metropolis News quoted a rescuer as saying that rubble showed that no steel reinforcing bars had been used in construction, only iron wire.