Li Wenliang’s death exposes the costs of China’s authoritarianism

THE DEATH of Li Wenliang has shaken China like an earthquake. He was a young doctor who was reprimanded by Chinese police for alerting colleagues to a new virus that has now killed more than 1,300 people, Dr Li among them (see article). There was nationwide soul-searching when the ophthalmologist told Chinese media, days before his death on February 6th in Wuhan, Hubei province, that silencing truth-tellers can make a country sick. “I think there should be more than one voice in a healthy society,” he said.

There is special outrage that this everyman-physician died with the charge of rumour-mongering still on his police file. “What kind of society have we created?” asked Chinese netizens, with a mixture of anger and shame. In the hours after Dr Li’s death nearly 2m of them shared or viewed a hashtag meaning “I want freedom of speech”, before it was deleted by censors. Open letters and petitions have called on the Communist Party’s leaders to honour the constitution’s neglected guarantee of free expression, arguing that truth-telling saves lives. “We should learn from Li Wenliang’s death,” said an academic in Wuhan behind one petition.