China cultural revolution murder trial sparks debate

The cultural revolutionary young Chinese

The trial in China of an elderly man accused of murder during the Cultural Revolution has sparked online debate.
The man, reportedly in his 80s and surnamed Qiu, is accused of killing a doctor he believed was a spy.
The Cultural Revolution, launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, was an era of violence against intellectuals and other alleged bourgeois elements.
Some have questioned why one man is on trial so belatedly when so few officials have been brought to account.
Prosecutors say that in 1967 Qiu, from Zhejiang province, strangled the doctor with a rope.
Charges were filed against him in the 1980s and he was arrested last year, Global Times reported.
Mao's 10-year Cultural Revolution was intended to produce massive social, economic and political upheaval to overthrow the old order.
Ordinary citizens - particularly the young - were encouraged to challenge the privileged, resulting in the persecution of hundreds of thousands of people who were considered intellectuals or otherwise enemies of the state.
The BBC's John Sudworth in Shanghai says the topic of what went on during the Cultural Revolution remains highly sensitive in China and public discussion of it is limited, but that the trial has caused fierce debate online.
"Such a trial is to make an individual the scapegoat for the party and state," one user said on the Weibo micro-blogging site.