Footage of men beating women in a restaurant in the northeastern Chinese city of Tangshan has sparked outrage on Chinese social media.
The incident has reignited controversy over the treatment of women, prompting state media to demand that the perpetrators be punished.
The demand came after CCTV footage and spread on the Chinese social media platform Weibo showed a man approaching a table in a barbecue restaurant and placing his hand on a woman’s body at about 2:40 a.m. local time on Friday. According to what was reported by Archyde.com.
Anger after a brutal assault
In the ensuing altercation, a group of men were also seen brutally attacking the woman and her escorts.
After that, discussion of the attack dominated Chinese social media, taking the top six most controversial topics on Weibo.
5 men in Tangshan (唐山), Hebei province, brutally assaulted a woman in a restaurant after she turned down unwanted attention from one of them. The woman suffered serious injuries, and the attack has sparked furious demands to address misogyny in China.
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— Byron Wan (@Byron_Wan) June 11, 2022
A comment published by the All-China Women’s Federation website, which cares about Chinese women’s news, said that such brutal cases of gross violations of women’s rights and interests should be zero-tolerated, according to Archyde.com.
The police are interfering
Faced with this anger, the local police intervened, saying that two women had sustained non-life-threatening injuries and were receiving treatment in hospital.
The local public security bureau also announced in a Weibo post that the police had arrested the nine suspects in the case by noon today and the investigation is still ongoing.
It is noteworthy that this is not the first incident. Last February, the appearance of a woman from Feng County in eastern China’s Jiangsu Province while she was tied by her neck in a video clip that spread widely on social media, sparked great public anger in China.