hardboiled blog

The New York Times published this article on 21-year-old Deng Yujiao who fought sexual assault by fatally stabbing her attacker, a local government official. 

As she described it to a lawyer, Ms. Deng was a waitress in a karaoke parlor in rural Badong County, a Hubei Province backwater along the Yangtze River. Like more than a few such venues, this one offered “special services,” or prostitution, in a backroom spa, the only room with hot water.

On the night of May 10, Ms. Deng said, she was in the room washing clothes, when a local official, Huang Weide, came in and demanded that she take a bath with him. She refused, and after a struggle fled to a bathroom.

But Mr. Huang and two companions — including a second official, Deng Guida, who was not related to Ms. Deng — tracked her to the bathroom, then pushed her onto a couch. As they attacked, Ms. Deng said, she took a fruit knife from her purse and stabbed wildly. Mr. Deng fell, mortally wounded.

She was recently released from arrest after the Hubei court ruled that she had acted in self-defense and would not face any criminal penalties.

Deng’s case could easily have gone unnoticed by the country, and she would likely have been punished for killing a Communist official.  But with a growing force of Chinese citizens using the internet to voice opinions, Deng’s case quickly became a public sign of resistance against the government’s power abuse.  After Deng’s arrest, blogger Wu Gan publicized her case and soon people began hailing her as a national hero and called for a fair trial.   Under public pressure, Hubei officials released Deng on bail, and Wu found a “prominent Beijing law firm” to represent her. 

On May 22, Beijing censors ordered Web sites to stop reporting on the case. Four days later, television and the Internet were cut off in Yesanguan, the town where the attack occurred. The official explanation for the shutdown was as a “precaution” against lightning strikes.

Spurred by the Internet frenzy, Chinese journalists had converged on Badong County. But after censorship was imposed, local officials began screening outsiders, and some journalists seeking to report there were beaten. Mr. Wu’s blog was shut down by censors.

Deng’s victory is a testament to the power of a collective force, even if it’s just online.  Just look at the sheer amount of work the government had to go through to quell public unrest.  There are a countless number of similarly unjust incidents that go unnoticed everyday, but online outcry has helped bring some of them to light. 

Never underestimate the power of public awareness.