On May 10, Deng stabbed with a pedicure knife two local township officials who were alleged to have been sexually assaulting her. According to a brief submitted by her first lawyer, Mr. Xia Lin, the officials Deng stabbed were trying to “pacify” her while five senior officials waited in an adjoining room for their chance at her.
One of the officials Deng stabbed was pronounced dead on the way to the hospital, and Deng was initially arrested on the charge of murder after she turned herself in. She was locked up in a hospital’s mental ward. In a video posted on a Chinese Web site, she was seen tied to her bed, crying in pain. She was initially charged with murder, then manslaughter. That charge was then reduced, in turn, to intentional assault, for which she was found guilty on Tuesday in Badong but then released without any punishment.
The reductions in her sentence, and then the decision not to punish Deng, reflect the regime adjusting its treatment of her to the intense public outcry over her case. The story became viral in Chinese cyberspace instantly and state-run media carried articles taking Deng’s side. Deng was celebrated as a heroine for fighting back.
The case garnered so much attention that it was deemed a threat, because the date when it happened was too close to June 4: the date of the Tiananmen Square massacre, the symbol of the CCP’s brutality. Chinese media outlets soon received a gag order. In online forums and social networking sites, the topic was banned and old posts were removed completely, as though nothing had ever happened.
Part of a Pattern
Deng Yujiao’s case is not rare in China. In 2006, Gao Yingying, a hotel waitress in Laohekou City, Hubei Province, was raped and murdered. Her body was cremated by police without autopsy. Nobody was charged for the crime, but it is generally believed the rapist was a relative of the city’s Party secretary.
In June 2008, a 15-year-old schoolgirl, Li Shufen was found dead in a river in Weng’An, Guizhou Province. Police ruled that the death was suicide but the general public suspected that the girl had been raped and murdered. Again, the suspects were related to local Party officials and police commanders. In both cases, no suspect was charged.
For powerful and rich Party members, the number of women they are involved with, especially the number of virgins they deflower, is something they would brag about. To some extent, defloration becomes a symbol of power, relevancy, and individual accomplishment.
It is risky to have sex with a virgin by force. As a result, buying a virgin has become very popular among Party officials. Many underage girls are often coerced into becoming virgin sex slaves. In China, having sex with girls under 14 constitutes statutory rape and carries a maximum sentence of death. The Party officials, however, often get away with it.
Lu Yumin, 47, ran the national taxation office in Yibin County of Sichuan Province. Nobody knows exactly how many little girls were sexually abused by Lu. Last December he had sex with a 13-year-old female student. He was caught and charged with visiting a prostitute. His punishment? Fifteen days’ administrative detention and a fine equivalent to US$736, according to the Chengdu Commercial Daily on May 11.
In contrast, a peeping Tom from the same province was charged with rape and sentenced to one year behind bars. Of course, he was not a Party member, neither well connected nor rich.
A vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, Wu Tianxi, in Zhenping County, Henan province, raped at least 36 underage girls in his office in 2 years, People’s Daily reported.
Because rape victims in China are reluctant to come forward, the real number of victims may be far greater. According to Wu, his goal was to have sex with 100 virgins. One way that Wu got virgins was by abducting young women off the streets in broad daylight. In two years, Wu and his thugs ran amok in the county without being checked. The youngest girl he raped was only 12 at the time.
All of these crimes have reminded ordinary Chinese citizens of the deep-rooted arrogance that permeates the CCP. Party officials and the police have increasingly become perceived as public enemies in China. It is generally believed that, as long as the CCP is in power, there are thousands of Deng Yujiaos and “virgin prostitutes” in the making. But the fate of these young women has made the CCP’s continued rule even more intolerable for many Chinese.
