Rare protest in China over schoolgirl beaten by teens

A Chinese flag flies outside of the Secondary Intermediate People's Court of Tianjin northeastern China's Tianjin municipality, Wednesday, Dec. 26, 2018. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

A large protest erupted in the southwestern Chinese city of Jiangyou, videos on social media showed, after the beating of a young girl by three other teenagers sparked public outrage.

Protests are rare in China, where any and all opposition to the ruling Communist Party and anything seen as a threat to the civil order is swiftly quashed.

But bullying in the country’s ultra-competitive education system has touched a public nerve, with a high-profile killing last year sparking national debate over how the law deals with juvenile offenders.

On Monday, police said two teenage girls were being sent to a correctional school for assaulting and verbally abusing a 14-year-old girl surnamed Lai.

The beating, which took place last month and left multiple bruises on Lai’s scalp and knees, was filmed by bystanders who shared it online, police said.

The onlookers and a third girl who participated in the abuse were “criticised and educated”, police said, adding that their guardians had been “ordered to exercise strict discipline”.

The case drew outrage online from some lamenting the teenagers’ punishment did not go further.

And later on Monday, people gathered outside the city hall in Jiangyou, in Sichuan province, with large crowds stretching around the block, footage showed.

Video confirmed by AFP to have been taken outside the city hall showed at least two people forcibly pulled aside by a group of blue-shirted and plainclothes police as well as a woman in a black dress dragged away by her limbs.

“They’re sweeping away citizens everywhere,” a person can be heard saying as the woman is dragged away.

More footage taken after dark showed police wearing black SWAT uniforms subduing at least three people at an intersection with hundreds of bystanders.

On Tuesday, the city of Jiangyou was the second top-trending topic on the X-like Weibo, before it and related hashtags were censored.

“The sentence is too light... that is why they were so arrogant,” one top-liked Weibo comment under the police statement read.

On Tuesday, local authorities said on WeChat that police had punished two people for fabricating information about the school bullying case, warning the public against spreading rumours.

Last year Chinese authorities vowed to crack down on school bullying after a high-profile murder case.

In December, a court sentenced a teenage boy to life in prison for murdering his classmate.

The suspects, all aged under 14 at the time of the murder, were accused of bullying a 13-year-old classmate over a long period before killing him in an abandoned greenhouse.

Another boy was given 12 years in prison, while a third whom the court found did not harm the victim was sentenced to correctional education.