A Chinese teenager was allegedly beaten to death at a boot camp for troubled youths that his mother had lured him to attend by promising he was going to study IT, state media have said.

Chen Shi, 16, died two days after enrolling in Beiteng School in Changsha, capital of central China's Hunan province, having been beaten up when he refused to run during training, the Beijing Times reported.

According to witnesses, an instructor — helped by two others — beat him with a plastic pipe, handcuffs and a wooden baton when he refused to run.

The incident comes amid controversy over China's hundreds of boot camps that aim to discipline unruly youths or wean them off web addictions.

His mother Tang Yulin decided to enrol Chen to toughen him up because he was "afraid of hardship, had weak willpower and not enough self-confidence" and had failed a school exam, it said.

They both travelled to Changsha from their home province of Jiangsu, in the east, after Tang told Chen he was going to study IT to persuade him to go.

The school's admissions director had advised her to lie, saying 90 percent of students who attended were given a false reason for attending and the remaining 10 percent were "kidnapped" by their parents or school instructors.

Tang paid $A3,500 for half a year of attendance and went home after being told she would not be able to contact Chen directly but would have to use a teacher as an intermediary, the report said.

Two days later, she received a call from the school saying Chen was in hospital in critical condition "possibly from sunstroke," and asking her and her husband to come immediately.

They jumped on a plane but Chen died before they arrived. They managed to see his body — which was covered in blood and bruises, while his underpants were torn.

The report quoted police as saying that three people had been detained on suspicion of killing Chen.

The school has now been closed amid disciplinary measures, the report said.

The Changsha police and education bureau were not immediately available for comment.

In August last year, the beating death of a teenage boy enrolled by his parents at an Internet addiction camp provoked outrage across the country.

A similar incident happened was reported on cctv last year. The kid forced by his parents to the school/training camp to try and get rid of his internet addiction. The kid died after 3 days at the camp after being beaten to death by one of the instructors.

Imagine having to explain that to the parents... Mr & Mrs Lee the good news is your son won't have an internet addiction anymore... the bad news is.....

that is very extreme!!! i hope there is laws put in place to stop this sort of act from happening again... but a kid dying because they dont want to run... that is very bad =[

Not sure about laws taking place - this is China we're talking about!

I dunno, in general when I'm in China I do feel fairly safe which is ironic when you hear of the above stories.

i guess i understand your point of view as i dont live in china... ive been to china a few times, never to monger andi feel safe myself whenever i am over in china... but coming from a western country i feel that this is a breach of human rights and is child abuse in my opinion...


in anyhoo, i hope this doesnt EVER happen again.. i saw this report on television tonight too!!

Well, it seems like in a country like PRC, things like this will always happen as long as the govt. is as it is.

Was beating really necessary to the point of death?
Actually... all the guys really had to do. Was force the other guys in the guys platoon to keep running until that guy started to run. That way... if anyone was to be giving out punishments... it wouldn't be the instructors. The other kids in the platoon would give that kid a hard enough time.

If the kid turns homeless for a lack of work skills.  It would be a quick way to execute people who offend the government.  The government may not want riff raff clogging the streets and may just opt to fine the boot camp.