Chinese TV station to broadcast murder trial

SHANGHAI—A Chinese court is taking the rare step of letting a local TV station broadcast the trial of a farmer charged with stabbing 10 people to death at a Taoist temple, a news report said Saturday.
Qiu Xinhua, 47, goes on trial Thursday in the northwestern city of Ankang in Shaanxi province, the newspaper Beijing News reported.
"The trial will be fully covered by Ankang Television Station," the newspaper said. It didn't say whether the broadcasts would be live or whether some portions of the trial might be blacked out.
China's state-controlled media have sharply increased coverage of trials in recent years as the communist government tries to assure the public it is stamping out crime, corruption and official abuses.
The country has a long tradition of widely publicizing political trials conducted as part of official power struggles. But showing a whole trial on television, and especially one involving an ordinary defendant, is almost unheard of.
Qiu is accused of killing the abbot of the Tiewadian temple in Ankang, five staff members and four pilgrims on July 14, according to earlier news reports. He reportedly believed the abbot had flirted with his wife.
Qiu was caught in mid-August following a nationwide manhunt.

- China Daily,  Daily Mail news exchange item