From Global Voices:
“China: Netizens stand with the waitress who killed an official”
Deng Yujiao, a waitress in Hubei Province stabbed an official to death and injured another in resisting their sexual advances. Comments on the internet showed no sympathy with the dead official and generally support the 21-year-old girl, acclaiming that she is another Yang Jia who acted in response to an injustice.
The dead man, Deng Guida, is the chief of county investment promotion office. He came with his two colleagues to the entertainment venue Dream City for a massage, and met the waitress there. They asked for ’special service’, meaning sex service in China, but were refused.
It is alleged that Deng Guida took from his pocket a wad of money and hit the waitress on the head with it. Humiliated by the action, Deng tried to leave the room but the victim twice pushed her onto a sofa as she attempted to do so. The waitress found a knife, stabbing at the victim’s throat, killing him and also injuring one of his colleagues.
The waitress later called police and surrendered.
The news immediately triggered a public discussion after it was revealed. At first it was about whether the girl’s action should be regarded as self-defense. Though legal experts agreed she is likely to be charged, some in Xing-Dao Daily, a Hong Kong newspaper, argued,
The official had requested Deng to offer ’special service’, but was refused! He violently pushed Deng onto the sofa twice, an action that could well be seen as an attempted rape. The infringement on Deng’s rights was an ongoing one and may well have severely injured Deng. Therefore her stabbing was an act of self-defense and given the emergency….she should face no criminal charge!
Many netizens spoke highly of Deng. Yi Li in Tianya commented on the news, saying,
Deng Yujiao, you are good. I admire and support you, and will learn from you. Best regards.
jy_xyp said:
I would be content if I could marry a girl like this.
Virginity is very important in China, and there are numerous stories on how women defended their honor. The sentiment of admiring a girl for defending her virginity, is here combined with a hatred against corrupt officials in the case.
In People.com, a blogger Sun Xiaobo questioned:
How come that these officials have so much money? During the dispute the victim hit the girl on the head with a wad of money. How could a public servant on a salary have so much to spare without any thought or scruple? Was it public funds or embezzled money perhaps?
How could they visit entertainment venues so frequently and are obsessed with ’special service’ so much?
Bloggers, netizens and intellectuals are taking action to support Deng Yujiao. A public letter calling for people to send their words of comfort to Deng, who is now imprisoned, appeared on the internet saying Deng is a heroine. Many still worry though that the police may manipulate the evidence to help the court rule against Deng.
In a preliminary assessment, Deng was identified as having a mental condition. Also, the police allege that the weapon Deng used was actually a fruit knife rather than the nail clipper that Deng used in her job of clipping nails for customers. On this point, blogger Zhou Zhongming wrote an article:
First, the police don’t mention the wad of money at all!
Second, they allege the weapon was a fruit knife, not a nail clipper! This is no small difference because if it is a nail clipper, it shows that the girl was defending herself in a panic with a tool right at hand. If it is a fruit knife however, it implies that the girl took the knife from somewhere else and killed the official on purpose rather than in simple self-defense
Further, they allege that medications for a mental condition were found in the girl’s bag. How vicious a trick to protect the officials’ reputation! They can even put the girl into a mental asylum. Everyone knows it is far worse to be in a State madhouse than being given a death sentence.
The blogger gave a possible scenario of the police conclusions: that the girl, because of her mental condition and persecution paranoia, stabbed the two officials with a purposely prepared knife.
more information at: Global Voices
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Self-defense, she shouldn’t go to jail and should be compensated.
i dont know how chinese law works but you are only allowed to defend yourself using reasonable force. assult with a weapons against an unarmed person would be regarded as excessive force. therefore she should be jailed!
Absolutely self-defense.
She should not be punished.
She can stab me anytime! Wish I had a wad of money to spare to hit random people over the head with.
Chinese waitress sticks it to the man…
Maybe now officials will think twice about abusing their power….yeah right.
Wish her the best. Hope shes found innoncent
Awesome girl, kill that stupid twat, anyone who smacked me over the head with ANYTHING would have to pay the price too, but for a girl in danger from a sex-crazed, corrupt government official, she gets carte-blanche for any self defense she wants to employ. If she hadn’t killed him, he’d probably use his power to completely ruin her life. Her retribution was just.
I really hope she gets away with it. If she does it will definately shoot some hope into my extremely poor opinion of Chinese “Justice”.
I’ve got a bad feeling about how this one’s going to turn out. Reading that last comment from the blogger makes me think this is going to have a shitty ending.
Fauna, I hope you can give us updates on this story!
I don’t know what the self-defense law is in China, but I think in America she’d still be charged with murder in the second degree. Pushing someone onto a sofa is difficult to connect clearly to rape and self-defense laws only apply if you feel your life is being directly threatened at the time, as in with a knife or gun or such. Difficult to prove here.
Nevertheless, these academics and bloggers can talk all they want, but in the end, I am cynically confident that that’s all they’ll do. Just like they did with Yang Jia, just like they did with a man in Sichuan who was charged with rape, just like they did when a cleaning woman is charged with theft, just like they did when a boy was hit by a car in Hangzhou. Repeated and innumerable injustices are something that should be protested, they say, but until it happens to them personally, they don’t actually give a damn about growing some balls and doing something.
everyone one of the events you mentioned had huge protests, I’m pretty sure people have “balls”. More importantly were you there?
You did notice, of course, what happened with the Hangzhou incident, didn’t you? They eventually came around…
There seem to be two really strong Chinese cultural trends that are coming in to conflict here. On the one hand, a woman defending her virginity strikes everyone as highly reasonable and even responsible behavior. On the other hand, judging from the number of times my students use the phrase “harmonious society” in their essays and speeches, maintaining social harmony is extremely valued. Regardless of the cause of a conflict, there seems to be an agreement that the ideal outcome is one that causes no one to lose face, or not to lose too much face. In light of that, poor Deng did not come up with a “harmonious” solution to her problem and that may be the real crime here.
That makes no sense. If the ideal outcome is that no one lose too much face then everybody would not want the official to be charged with rape otherwise it’d be a loss of face for the official’s family and the whatever government the official represented but people are clearly out for blood.
The “harmonious” bullshit is just propagada from the communist government, they want to pacify the people so they won’t overthrow the government.
I hereby agree that she should not be charged since she was defending herself. I feel bad for the deceased man’s family but men need to know they just can’t screw anyone they want, anytime they want.
these days ,almost all of chinese focus on this event.
Police alreay arrest the poor girl on a charge of murder. But many many kind voluntaries already went to local police and hospital, even her grandparent’s home, and try their best to help her. many reporters from media are crowding in the locality
Everyone should rise up and take the wads of money from the capitalist running dogs who masquerade as government officials. Then we will rally the peasants and organize them into things called “communes,” watching as our new leaders begin to fall into corruption and establishing an old-boys network that is very difficult to overthrow. After that, some girl from the future will hit someone else over the head with a big wad of money.
OR
We could just let people choose their own leaders.
What she has done, I feel is just and fair. Now I’m a man and I would never in my life treat a girl this way. The official should not be abusing his power and degrading and humiliating women ,young or old. Now these are the people that rely on the public for their trust. Absoluly sickening. They both had it coming to them and she shop
uld walk free.
You go Girl! You should have pulled a Lorena Bobbitt.
Was searching for her name to see what was going on in the case but the first 3 links showing were blocked by guess who. Embarrasing.
any update on this news ??
oops got one
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/27/china-bails-deng-yujiao
Chinese police have released on bail a woman who became an unwilling hero to tens of thousands of compatriots after stabbing to death an official who she said tried to rape her when she rejected his advances.
The state newspaper China Daily said authorities in Badong, Hubei, released Deng Yujiao last night because she had turned herself in after the killing more than two weeks ago.
But today many bloggers speculated that the decision reflected public pressure. Comments on the killing inundated blogs and bulletin boards, and news of the 21-year-old’s release from custody was widely welcomed.
Deng’s case – and its handling by police – has become emblematic of the struggle of ordinary people against abusive officials.
The message was spelled out in a protest at a Beijing university this week in which a gagged female student bound in sheets was shown with a message reading: “Anyone could become a Deng Yujiao.”
Each twist in the investigation has aroused fresh sympathy for Deng, from the claim that the dead man hit her with a wad of cash when she refused to have sex with him to the allegation that police tried to label her mentally ill and that her mother was pressed to fire her lawyers.
Deng was working in a karaoke and leisure centre in Badong, central China, on 10 May when two officials demanded “special services” – a euphemism for sex – according to initial reports from the local authorities. After a brief struggle, she stabbed to death one of the men, Deng Guida, 44, the director of the area’s business promotion office, and injured his colleague. According to Deng’s account, obtained by the Southern Metropolis Daily, prostitution was common at the centre.
When she told the men she was not selling sex, Deng Guida responded: “Aren’t you all the same? You are a prostitute but you still want to have a good reputation.” Hitting her repeatedly with a wad of banknotes, he said: “Don’t you want money? Would you believe if I am going to beat you to death with money today?”
Deng said she pulled out a knife after the men repeatedly dragged her back as she tried to leave. As Deng Guida pushed her on to a sofa, she lashed out with the blade. She called police to tell them Deng Guida was dying, and waited for them to arrive.
Police said they had found antidepressants in Deng’s bag and initially had her committed to a mental hospital. A later police statement toned down allegations about the dead man’s behaviour and claimed Deng had stabbed him with a fruit knife, rather than with a pedicure knife, which would have been readily available at the leisure centre. Her backers fear that is intended to imply that the act was in some way premeditated.
Supporters say any punishment she receives should be mild because she was acting in self-defence. They initially feared she could face murder charges, but think that is unlikely now she has been bailed.
“The change the police has made is fundamentally because of the supervision of the public opinion. I hope the police will keep walking towards the right direction and the netizens can make persistent efforts and carry out supervision to the end,” wrote one blogger, Si Ning.
Another, calling himself Old Soldier, added: “This is the only good news since Deng Yujiao’s case happened and I feel great relief. Why did the police change their attitude? It seems to be a response to the public and media’s attention.”
Officials in Badong have promised Deng a fair hearing. They refused to comment when contacted by the Guardian.
Anyone can crosscheck this with the one we have here in China ?
i hope our prosecutors can hunt down these corrupted officials in the next step.
She was aquitted on grounds of selfdefense. Just read it in one of my national newspapers. Cool.
she was set free. good! perhaps i wont be so dark on chinese justice…
21 and still a virgin, what a prude.
troll, what a prudge.
Samuel, many girls are virgins here until 25′ish or marrige, the pressures of study are too great for other distractions.
I think you overestimate the age at which women lose their virginity in China… Many college age women follow their curiosity, but they probably don’t tell their husbands about their explorations.
I hope she doesn’t get in jail. It’s good the media attention did help. Some men just don’t understand it when a woman says “no”. Even if she’s poor doesn’t mean she wanna sell her body.
If I was there, I would have f**king stabbed him for her myself.
Should of stabbed and gutted the mo fo and afterwards, throw a kuai on him and tell him that he’s only worth that much.
Killing another human being is wrong and far worse than rape, even if in defense of virtue. Especially when the criminal is not trying to kill the victim. A strong message must be made to all would be rape victims to not overreact when placed in such situations.
Crap! Corrupt Official got served! Take this from me….Go home to ur wives and quit playing around!
how about NOT calling the officer a “Victim” and instead calling him the Dead perpetrator
Smack