More from the files of Regimes Behaving Badly: The death toll in China’s massive May 12 quake is near 70,000, and the parents who’ve had their families under China’s strict one-child policy are feeling the pain especially hard. And particularly when schools were leveled disproportionately as compared to surrounding structures, so as to raise suspicions that they were shoddily constructed: About 10,000 of the deaths reported thus far were schoolchildren.

Angry, grieving parents are protesting this, and a Chinese government that’s tried to paint itself as “man of the people” in the wake of the quake is now showing it has little tolerance for such demonstrations. From the International Herald Tribune:

“Police officers surrounded more than 100 parents protesting Tuesday against shoddy school construction that they say resulted in the deaths of thousands of children during the recent earthquake here.


The police dragged away several crying mothers and harassed journalists trying to report on the event, according to witnesses and photos of the protest.


The standoff between the parents, many carrying framed photos of their children, and the officers, dressed in black uniforms, lasted for several hours and ended with the parents walking off feeling both intimidated and frustrated, said those involved in the protest.


…The confrontational stand of the police and local government here, the scene of several major school collapses when the earthquake struck May 12, is the strongest sign so far of a growing impatience among government officials toward any public airing of grievances over the school issue.


…Several Chinese journalists have said in recent days that officials from the central government have told their news organizations not to continue reporting on the issue of schools.


…Officials in the town of Juyuan visited with seven leaders among the parents Monday night and persuaded six of them not to attend the Tuesday protest, (parent) Li said. The visits came after parents carried out a protest earlier that day demanding that Juyuan officials apologize for not pushing rescue workers to keep searching for the bodies of children classified as missing.


Though some leaders dropped out, the protest took place anyway. It started at 8 a.m. When the parents reached the courthouse, they were confronted by police officers in black uniforms. About four or five reporters who were on the scene were taken by the police into the courthouse against their will, said Li and a reporter for The AP.”

Incidentally, today is 19th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre — and China has spared no resources in making sure that heavy security will prevent any would-be protesters from remembering that tragedy.

(Photo by Andrew Wong/Getty Images)