IN A CASE that has gripped China and sparked a public outcry over women’s rights and official corruption, a karaoke bar waitress who stabbed to death a communist party cadre who tried to rape her walked free after a court said she acted in self-defence.
Deng Yujiao (21) was cleared of intentional injury by the Datong County People’s Court in the central Chinese province of Hubei, the People’s Daily reported. Hundreds of her supporters waited outside the courtroom for the verdict.
The court ruled that Ms Deng had diminished criminal responsibility and also took into account that she turned herself in to the police after using a fruit knife to stab 43-year-old government official Deng Guida, who later died.
Ms Deng was doing laundry when she was approached by Mr Deng, who ran a local government office for business promotion and is no relation to the young woman, and his companion and colleague, Huang Dezhi.
The two men tried to rape Ms Deng and, in the ensuing struggle, she killed one of the officials with a fruit knife and wounded the other.
The outpouring of sympathy for the young woman has been unprecedented and it has also prompted an outcry over women’s rights in China. It has become a focus of public unhappiness about corruption and abuse of power by cadres.
Mr Huang asked Ms Deng when she was washing clothes in a service room next to his “hydrotherapy suite” to provide “special services”, a euphemism for sex.
Mr Huang demanded she take a bath with him, but she refused, saying she worked as an attendant in the KTV lounge downstairs, not as a hostess in the spa upstairs. He later returned with Mr Deng, who also tried to force her to have sex.
He then took out a wad of money and used it to slap Ms Deng on the face and shoulder. At each slap, the woman took a step backwards until she was at the edge of the sofa. She then attacked him with a knife she had in her bag.
Mr Huang and another government official who was also at the spa on the night of the stabbing have been fired as investigations continue into the “serious mistake” by the cadres.
Police shut the spa and were questioning its owners, while Mr Huang has also been detained.
It is the latest in a similar stream of cases and the young woman has become something of a folk hero in online postings.