#tealeafnation

王雪梅 (Wang Xuemei) is a top legal medical expert in the Supreme People's Procuratorate and vice-chairman of the Chinese Forensic Medicine Association. She appeared regularly in print and TV programs, in which she has been given the rather unique title of China's "most beautiful forensic pathologist." She resigned from the CFMA in Aug 2013, appearing in a YouTube video in which she disputed the autopsy findings in a case where the electrocution of the Beijing university student Ma Yue in 2010 was declared to be an accident (more suspicion arose when ten minutes of surveillance footage were discovered to have been deleted). She said in a statement on Ma's mother's Weibo page, "I can’t tolerate that my name, Wang Xuemei, is confused with an organization producing such ridiculous and irresponsible forensic conclusions."

Why it is blocked: While publicly questioning the conclusions of colleagues, who are prone to political and police pressure, in the case of a student's death is sensitive enough, western media emphasized the fact that she had also criticized the government's findings in a much more high-profile death: that of British businessman Neil Heywood. While Chinese courts convicted Gu Kailai, the wife of Bo Xilai, for poisoning Heywood with cyanide drops, Wang contested this account, declaring in Sept 2012 that based on her review of public documents that Heywood's death was not consistent with a cyanide poisoning, and that he was perhaps killed for his secret dealings with the Bo family.

Though folks speculated that despite the fact that Wang cited the Ma Yue case as triggering her resignation, the timing of her announcement--just days before the start of Bo Xilai's trial--may have been intentional and designed to further publicize her doubts regarding Heywood's death.

According to my tests, Wang's name was unblocked as recently as Aug 17 (it was the only keyword from the China Chats list to have been found newly blocked between Aug and Sept 2013), and according to GreatFire, it was first detected to be blocked on Aug 30. While it is tempting to attribute the blocking of her name to the lightning rod that is Bo Xilai, an excellent piece from Tea Leaf Nation notes how the Ma Yue case resonated with Weibo users, who applauded Wang for fighting back against yet another apparent medical cover-up, a hot topic especially after the July beating death of a Hunan watermelon seller by chengguan that was officially declared to be caused by a heart attack outraged netizens. The article also notes Wang's history of casting doubt on official accounts, and her past role as a source of integrity and skeptic of the system no doubt caused her name to be placed on the China Chats sensitive keyword list in the first place.