The graphic video, which has gone viral on China’s Weibo social networking platform, shows a man approaching a table at a barbecue restaurant and touching a woman at around 2:40 a.m. local time on Friday and then hitting her after repelled. In the ensuing altercation, a group of men were seen brutally attacking the woman and her partners. Local police said two women suffered non-life-threatening injuries and are being treated at the hospital. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register All nine suspects in the case had been arrested by Saturday afternoon and an investigation is under way, the local Public Security Bureau said in a Weibo post. The discussion about the attack dominated the Chinese social media on Saturday, occupying the first six places of the most discussed topics on Weibo. In a brief online comment, state television called for the suspects to be severely punished. However, following other recent high-profile cases of abuse of women, a widely reported post on WeChat on Saturday challenged the original official framework of the attack as a mere act of violence. “This happened in a society where violence against women is rampant … Ignoring and suppressing the gender perspective means denying the violence that people suffer – as women,” the anonymous post said. China Women’s News, published by the Pan-Chinese Women’s Federation, said in a commentary on Saturday that “there can, and only should, be zero tolerance for such vicious cases of serious violations of women’s rights and interests.” In February, the suffering of a woman in Feng County, in eastern Jiangsu Province, sparked a public outcry after she was chained around her neck in a social media video that went viral. read more Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Report by Andrew Galbraith. Edited by: Kim Coghill Our role models: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
