A homicide event on the first day of the Lunar New Year provokes confusion and provides a glimpse of China’s fraying social fabric.

Variously described as a “mass murder” or “major murder,” a homicide which claimed more than 10 victims in Shandong Province on China’s east coast on the first day of the Lunar New Year has produced a maelstrom of confusion thanks to a tight block on information.

Early reports referred to the incident as the deadliest homicide event in the history of the PRC, although that is difficult to verify given the dearth of detail. One of the more reliable news sources, Radio Free Asia, has provided the following report:

“What happened to Ju County”? Chinese media block information about suspected murders

Reported by Wang Yun | Published by Radio Free Asia | February 12, 2024

Since the first day of the Lunar New Year (February 10), the Internet has been full of news of a major murder in a village in Luohe Town, Ju County, Rizhao, Shandong. Official Hong Kong media also reported on the issue, but it was quickly deleted. As of now, relevant information on Chinese social media is still tightly blocked. The following is the verifiable information compiled by our reporter Wang Yun.

The only media reports that can be found about the incident in Luohe Town, Ju County, Shandong Province on February 11, “A Man in Ju County, Shandong Province Is Suspected of Hurting Many Villagers? Official: The Suspect Has Been Controlled,” and a report on February 12, “Homicide Tracking in a County in Shandong: Officials Say More Than 10 Victims, One Suspect Has Been Controlled”. However, after clicking on the web link to the above report, both articles have been deleted.

The results of the online search showed that NetEase [a games and Internet service provider] also had a related article, but it was impossible to determine whether it was a news report or a message posted by netizens on NetEase’s social media version. For now, the article has also been deleted.

The only media coverage

In Google search results, the first two sentences of two Phoenix.com [a multimedia content provider] reports still show limited information about the incident.

A February 11 report on Phoenix.com mentioned that the place where the incident occurred was “suspected to be Zhaike Village, Luohe Town, Ju County,” while the February 12 report stressed that the reporter had learned from local departments that there were “more than a dozen” victims in the case, and one suspect had been controlled.” The police are further investigating the case, and the relevant information is subject to the police report. This information confirms some of the news spread on social media in the past two days.

Up to now, this station has not been able to independently verify the above information.

The relatively complete information about this incident mainly comes from the international social media platform X outside the Great Firewall of China. In the early stages, some people said that there was a shooting, the death of medical personnel, and some people even said that the perpetrator was a retired armed policeman. But recently, the relevant information has become more and more focused: some migrant workers returned to their hometowns, [armed] with homemade steel bullets, shot and killed several families, and killed more than 10 people.

According to the information obtained from different sources, the big V “Teacher Li is not your teacher” on the X platform was released as follows: the murderer was in his thirties, and more than 10 people died, one of whom was the murderer’s teacher, and more than 10 people were injured at the same time; medical personnel from the local emergency center were also attacked and killed; and the police have blocked the village road. However, the details of the murderer and the deceased, as well as the medical staff, cannot be independently verified by this station.

On February 12, our reporter called the Juxian People’s Hospital, the Rizhao City Emergency Center under Ju County, the Linyi Central Hospital and the Linyi Emergency Center, where some of the injured were sent, but the other party said that they had not heard of it or that it was inconvenient to disclose the news. Calls from the central health center in Luohe Town, Juxian County, went unanswered from morning to evening.

On Monday, the reporter also called the Ju County Public Security Bureau and the police station in Luohe Township. But on the other end of the phone is a consistent automatic tone: “I don’t have permission to answer your call”. The reporter also called a wholesale store and a commercial company in Luohe Township, to which Zhaike Village belongs, but no one answered the phone.

“Does anyone explain the explanation?”

On the other hand, inside the Great Firewall of China, information is tightly blocked. Our reporter searched for relevant information on Sina Weibo and Zhihu during the day on February 12, and after entering keywords such as “Ju County” or “Zhaike Village,” there was almost no relevant information displayed. But after nightfall that day, some people began to mention “Ju County” on Weibo.

A netizen with Weibo ID “Pengcheng Shekou” posted: “Every year during the Spring Festival, there will be worries, this time it is Ju County.” Someone else mentioned that a police station called him and reminded him to delete Weibo content about Ju County.

There is also a Weibo netizen with the ID “Pan Xiang A” who uploaded a traffic map on his driving software, showing that the map on his route bypasses the road closure road centered on Ju County. This netizen questioned, “What happened to Ju County? Does anyone explain it?” This seems to confirm the rumors of the police blocking the local roads from the side, and it also faintly shows the atmosphere of local killings.

Almost at the same time, hints related to the incident also appeared on Zhihu. There are two posts with the same name titled “Murder in Luohe Zhaike Village, Juxian County?” but there were few responders, just someone [who] tentatively said, “Suppress it, right?”

Also in the evening, an “Emergency Notice on the Establishment of a Daily Reporting System for Social Contradiction Risks and Hidden Dangers” signed by the “Political and Legal Committee of the Rizhao Municipal Party Committee” began to circulate on the Internet, which was issued on February 11. The notice requires “focusing on the investigation of risks and hidden dangers that may induce extreme personal cases,” and specifically names 16 categories of persons to be investigated: real estate, doctors and patients, labor-management, persons involved in marriage and neighborhood disputes, persons involved in visits, investment failures, job unemployment, life frustration, emotional disharmony, mental imbalance, mental disorders, young people who are out of control, people who have violent tendencies and threaten to retaliate against society, and people who may cause violent conflicts.

An “Emergency Notice on the Establishment of a Daily Reporting System for Social Contradiction Risks and Hidden Dangers” signed by the Political and Legal Committee of the Rizhao Municipal Party Committee began to circulate on the Internet (X platform).

Regarding this “notice”, some people joked that except for party members, everyone else was investigated. However, it was also pointed out that the official document shown in the screenshot of the notice was not in a formal format and was not stamped to confirm its authenticity.

Reporter: Wang Yun | Editor: He Ping | Web Editor: Ruizhe

For the original version of this report, see the publisher’s website here.