Ranting man in wheelchair 'blows himself up' in arrivals hall at Beijing Airport

[mountaineer]

A man in a wheelchair set off a home-made bomb in the arrivals hall at Beijing Airport today.

The man was initially suspected to to have died in the blast in Terminal 3 at around 6.24pm local time, but Chinese state media has now said he survived and was taken to hospital.

A photograph emerged online in the wake of the explosion showing a man in a wheelchair brandishing something in the air, along with another showing an empty wheelchair on its side in the smoke-filled arrivals hall.

The picture shows a huddled group of people crouching around someone on the floor next to the over-turned wheelchair. ...
Rest of story and  photos at the Daily Mail U.K..

[mountaineer]

USA Today:

...  Although the motive behind the blast was not immediately clear, Xinhau reported the man was stopped from handing out leaflets before the bomb went off. Police would not immediately disclose the content of the fliers.

In a blog post that has since been deleted, a writer with the same name as Ji said he was beaten in 2005 by security personnel in Dongguan, a manufacturing hub in southern Guangdong province where he was working, having left his native Shandong in 1999.

In the post, the author wrote the attack left him disabled and unable to work, but efforts to seek compensation and justice — through an official petitioning system that rarely achieves petitioners' goals — met no success. USA TODAY could not immediately verify the blog's content or author.

Despite the desperately low chance of resolving their disputes through the process, many Chinese opt for petitioning in the hope that an official will intervene on their behalf. Going to court is less popular, as costs are higher and the public perceives judges as following the orders of the local Communist party officials who appoint them. ...