Beijing, Jan 23 - Chinese parents of children stricken by toxic milk pressed compensation demands on Friday, a day after a court sentenced two people to death and jailed 19 over the scandal in which six infants died.
At least eight provincial officials have been sacked and the country's former quality inspection chief has resigned, but none has yet been charged with a crime, state media said.
Zhao Lianhai, father of a three-year-old who was among the nearly 300,000 children made ill by milk formula tainted with the industrial compound melamine, was among four parents who handed the Ministry of Health a petition with hundreds of parents' names attached.
The petition, shown to Reuters by Zhao, reflected undiminished anger and demands for greater accountability.
"Children are the future of every family and even more they are the future of the nation," said the petition, accompanied by the names of hundreds of parents the document said had refused the government compensation offer.
"As parents of stricken children, we believe that the compensation was not established by agreement under conditions of mutual equality and voluntary consultation."
With the big Lunar New Year holiday starting on Monday, the government may hope criminal sentences handed down on Thursday will still public anger over the nation's latest food safety scandal before this time of family reunions.
A Chinese court in Shijiazhuang in northern China sentenced two men to death for trading in melamine put in milk. Milk adulterated with the cheap chemical could fool quality checks but caused kidney stones and agonising complications.
Tian Wenhua, the former general manager of Sanlu Dairy, the Shijiazhuang-based company at the heart of the scandal which broke in September, was sentenced to life in prison.
Two other men in the deadly trade were also sentenced to life and another received a conditional death sentence which, given good behaviour, will in two years almost certainly be commuted to life in jail.
The other defendants received various sentences, with two being jailed for 15 years, the China Daily said.
INADEQUATE COMPENSATION
The government has offered parents compensation for children killed or made ill by the toxic milk, which Sanlu executives and city officials knew about but did not report for many months.
But the petition rejected the government offer as inadequate, and said parents want to know more about the possibly lasting damage their children face.
"We want them to do more research into the effects of melamine," said one of the parents, Hou Rongbo, whose son died in early January just a week before his first birthday. Hou believes his death from leukaemia was caused or worsened by melamine that also gave him kidney stones.
"There are still many families whose children haven't received hospital care," he said.
A health ministry official told reporters that his office was talking to the parents.
But contention over the scandal is likely to last as long as the government does not give affected families the opportunity to voice their demands, said Xu Zhiyong, a Beijing-based law professor and rights advocate who has represented many of the angry parents.
"What the parents really want is compensation and guarantees about treatment for future problems," Xu said by telephone.
"The sentences don't answer those needs."