Official's wife beaten in error

Plainclothes police severely beat the wife of a provincial official, mistaking her for one of many Chinese who petition government offices in the hope of redressing wrongs, it has emerged.

The case highlights the abuse China's armies of petitioners routinely suffer,

The six officers set on Chen Yulian, the wife of a provincial police officer, last month when she tried to enter her husband's office building, which houses the Hubei provincial party headquarters, the China Daily said.

"This incident is a total misunderstanding," the Communist Party chief of the district bureau explained.