In one instance, she was told her physical evidence was inadmissible because she had visited the wrong hospital. Another time she was told that the correct police official was not present to take her evidence. And she was also informed that voice recordings were needed of her husband’s threats against her.

“The whole system here is designed to pressure women to give up and just drop it. But I didn’t. I just didn’t give up,” Lee says. “So that’s why when they read the decree and they issued the protection order, I just really sighed. I think I earned it.”

Li didn’t attend court the day of the judgment, and he didn’t respond to NPR’s request for an interview. Throughout the process, Lee — who’s also a teacher — has been guided by the example she’s setting for their daughters.

“I made a conscious decision. I used a Chinese lawyer, I used Chinese courts,” she says. “To be honest, a lot of my American friends did not understand this. They were like, ‘You’re crazy. You’re American. Go to the embassy immediately.’ But I did not want to teach my daughters, ‘No one can beat you because you’re American.’ I wanted to teach them, ‘No one can beat you because you’re a person, you’re a woman.’ “

On Huffington Post, Abby Huntsman, daughter of former U.S. Ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, interviewed Lee as well:

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Post tags: domestic violence, Kim Lee, Li Yang, women's rights
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Domestic violence is a pervasive problem in China, as Christina Larson reports for Bloomberg Businessweek:

It is difficult to measure the extent of domestic violence in China. Although most officially cited studies are thought to underestimate its prevalence, even those numbers are deeply unsettling. In 2011, the All China Women’s Federation, a state-steered non-governmental organization, released its findings that 25 percent of women in China have been victims of some form of domestic violence. A survey by the China Law Society put that number at 35 percent. An academic study published in 1999 in the International Journal of Gynaecology and Obstetrics found that 16 percent of pregnant woman admitted to the clinic of Hong Kong’s Tsan Yuk Hospital had suffered domestic abuse in the preceding year. By any yardstick, the problem is severe.

In an op-ed in the Guardian, writer Lijia Zhang writes about the “epidemic” of domestic violence in light of these two cases:

These two high-profile domestic violence cases are far from isolated; in fact, they are part of an epidemic. Traditional wisdom in China is to deal with domestic violence as something “best kept inside the house”. In September 2011, when Lee first broke the silence by posting the pictures of her battered face on the internet, her husband and like-minded male observers accused her of “airing the dirty laundry”. He also argued that it was “no big deal,” and that domestic abuse was part of Chinese culture. But now Lee has become an unlikely hero for having the courage to speak out.

Lee’s victory is hard-won. There were four hearings before Sunday, but her case was undoubtedly helped by the fact she is an American – and because of her determination and intelligence. More ordinary cases have to meet evidential standards before a court can even consider accepting it. When the case does go forward, punishment for the abuser tends to be light. A few years back, I interviewed a victim named Sun Xueqing, from Hangzhou. Her husband Mo Wenhui received a six-month jail sentence for throwing her from a balcony. Her spine was broken. Her lawyer explained : “My personal guess is that the court saw it as a family dispute. He wouldn’t have gotten away with it so easily if he had thrown a woman other than his wife from the second floor.”

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“It’s a very important case. All of society was paying attention,” Guo Jianmei, a leading rights lawyer, said in a phone interview. “We’ve been waiting for this for a long time.”

[…] Ms. Guo listed what she said were the case’s three victories – and one defeat.

“Firstly, the court granted a protection order. Secondly, it acknowledged domestic violence as the grounds of divorce,” something still too rare, she said.

“Thirdly, it ordered Li Yang to pay 50,000 renminbi in compensation for the violence, which although it’s a small amount is important in saying ‘it’s not acceptable,’” she said.

Yet Ms. Guo said that the financial terms of the settlement – Ms. Lee will receive 12 million renminbi ($1.9 million) and a fixed sum annually until her daughters reach 18 – showed that Chinese courts failed to uncover Mr. Li’s true assets and make him pay commensurately.

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Supporters say a reprieve for Li Yan would send the message that authorities are serious about confronting domestic violence. The 41-year-old from Sichuan had repeatedly begged for protection from her spouse.

According to Amnesty International, Li’s husband, Tan Yong, stubbed out cigarettes on her face, cut off part of her finger and locked her out on the balcony of their home in wintertime while she was only partially clothed.

She killed him in November 2010 by repeatedly hitting him over the head with an airgun to stop him from beating her. More than 100 legal experts and academics have signed an open letter calling for her sentence to be commuted.

The supreme people’s court has reportedly upheld Li’s death sentence, but her lawyer, Guo Jianmei, a well-known women’s rights advocate, said the defence team had not received formal notification. “Even if there is only a little hope, we want to fight for her to have a chance to live,” she said. “She killed her husband in fear that her life was seriously threatened.”

According to the South China Morning Post, more than 400 lawyers and women’s rights activists have called for a re-examination of the case against Li Yan in a petition sent to the Supreme People’s Court and Supreme People’s Procuratorate:

Teng Biao, director of China Against Death Penalty who launched the petition campaign, said they were calling on the judiciary to re-examine the domestic violence that led to the killing and take it into full account in a new decision showing due respect for human life.

He said the death sentence was flawed because it failed to take account of complaints Li had lodged with the local women’s federation and statements she gave to police in the months before the killing, as well as testimony from her neighbours, which all pointed to her having been a victim of domestic violence since the couple married about two years prior to the fatal incident.

“She had no excuse to kill her husband, but she’s nothing like a cold-blooded killer who planned the killing,” Teng said.

Human rights researcher Joshua Rosenzweig translated an article by lawyer Zhang Peihong in which he argued that there are sufficient legal grounds to reconsider Li’s punishment.

Li’s case has raised concerns about the criminal treatment of abused women who injure or kill their spouses in self-defense. The New York Times reports on the extent of the problem:

Women’s jails are filled with women who have injured or killed abusive husbands, according to the Anti-Domestic Violence Network, citing studies by local women’s federations and scholars. They account for 60 percent of inmates in one jail in Anshan, in Liaoning Province, and 80 percent of women serving heavy sentences in a jail in Fuzhou, in Fujian Province.

In a study by Xing Hongmei of China Women’s University, of 121 female inmates in a Sichuan jail who were serving time for attacking or killing abusive partners, 71 were originally sentenced to life in prison or to death (sometimes commuted, delayed or overturned on appeal), and 28 more were sentenced to at least 10 years. This means more than 80 percent received the heaviest possible sentences for murder or bodily harm, the study said.

For months before she killed Mr. Tan, Ms. Li sought help from the authorities in Anyue County, in Sichuan Province, where they lived, her brother said.

“She telephoned the police in, I think, May 2010, after a beating, but they said it was an affair between married people and hung up,” he said.

Women’s rights advocates have long fought for a domestic violence law to protect abused women. With a draft law now in the works, 12,000 people have signed a petition to the National People’s Congress which calls for transparency in the drafting process. From the New York Times blog:

Fed up with being excluded from the decision-making process, Chinese feminists not only want a law against domestic violence, they also want to know exactly what’s going into it, in a new push for accountability from their opaque government. The petition, “Asking for Openness and Transparency in the Process of the Anti-Domestic Violence Law,” spells that out.

Bai Fei, a university student from Shanghai, is one of three women behind the petition. Signatures were gathered online, the Yunnan Information News reported.

Ms. Bai grew up in a family where her father beat her mother. She wanted to know if the new law would help people like her mother, the newspaper wrote.

“When the law comes out, will my mother be able to get legal protection?” asked Ms. Bai. “What level of protection will the law afford her? If I can’t know what’s going into it, I won’t feel at all safe.”

Domestic violence was thrust into the national spotlight last year when the American wife of celebrity English teacher Li Yang posted gruesome photos on weibo of her injuries from his abuse.

Read more about domestic violence in China.

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IN 2006, when she was seven months pregnant, Kim Lee was kicked so hard in the abdomen by her husband that she needed hospital treatment. Such domestic violence, though shocking, is not uncommon in China. Around a quarter of Chinese women have experienced domestic abuse, according to the All China Women’s Federation (ACWF), a state-controlled NGO, but experts say the real figure is probably much higher. Concerns about losing family “face” mean many incidents go unreported, and few offenders are ever punished.

What makes Ms Lee different is that she is a white American. Her husband is Li Yang, the celebrity founder of Crazy English, a wildly popular English-language training institute, which encourages students to learn English by shouting it at the top of their voices.

The few people Ms Lee confided in, including her Chinese sister-in-law, told her to stop provoking her husband. When she complained to the police, after suffering concussion and bruised ribs, they told her to “relax and go home”. Frustrated, she turned to the internet, posting photos on a Chinese microblog last August. One showed a lump the size of a golf ball protruding from her forehead. Another showed a bloody ear. The photos caused a sensation. Hundreds of thousands of comments were published about them on microblogs. Since then, many more victims of domestic violence have come forward, and the issue has been reported and discussed more widely in Chinese media.

China.org.cn reports from outside the courtroom last Friday, noting the gathering of activists outside the courtroom showing their support for Lee and her cause:

At 8:40 am, as Lee walked into the court, she was surrounded by the activist group. The volunteers painted fake injuries on their face and held a banner saying “Zero Tolerance to the Domestic Violence – Anyone Could Be the Next One,” also presenting a scroll with over 1,000 signatures to Kim.

In response to the display, Li Yang called the tactic a publicity stunt, saying “A Lawsuit is a lawsuit, you can’t engage in such planning” to reporters encircling him outside the court.

Li Yang insisted that his actions did not constitute domestic violence, saying the incident with Lee was an isolated spat of anger which had been building up over a long period. “I don’t think that I’m a [perpetrator] of domestic violence. I think I did a good job in taking care of my family,” Li said.

[...]“When I walked into the court, Li Yang threatened me and said that you have to shut up today because this is in China. He also demanded that I shut down my Weibo,” Lee said.

“I’m so touched and very happy because so many people paid attention to me and helped me,” Lee said of the support she received after news of the incident broke.

China Daily reports on what was on the table at the hearings:

According to Lee’s lawyer, Lee gave up real properties that had been transferred by Li before the trial because she did not want to spend much more time on the suit and hoped to end her relationship with Li as soon as possible.

“My client gave up dividing stock and brand rights of Li’s company, Crazy English, since it will cost her more energy and make the trial longer,” Qi said.

“The transferred real properties were also hard to divide, so Kim Lee will also give up the appeal on them.”
However, for nine estate properties that Li did not transfer or that he changed to other names,Lee will ask to have eight of them divided, the lawyer said.

In addition, Lee is insisting on custody of the couple’s three children who are living in Beijing with her, Qi said, adding that the court will likely make decisions on all issues by the end of August.

[...]When reporters asked Li whether there was domestic violence, Li did not answer directly. Instead, he added the perceived violence might be a difference between Chinese and Western cultures.

Currently, there is no strong legal mechanism protecting women from domestic abuse in China. As public concern grows around this issue, that may soon change.

Also see CDT coverage of how Lee’s public outcry has stimulated a debate about domestic violence in China.

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Domestic violence everywhere lives in the shadows, and in China it thrives in a secrecy instilled by tradition that holds family conflicts to be private. It is also hard to go public in a country where many still consider women subservient to their husbands, and there is no specific national law against domestic violence.

At least one in four women in China is estimated to have been a victim of domestic violence at some point in her life, surveys show, with the rate in rural areas as high as two out of every three women. The violence takes many forms, from physical and sexual assault to emotional abuse or economic deprivation.

Lee’s case has spawned tens of thousands of postings on Chinese Twitter-like sites, along with protests and talk show debates. It is especially explosive because she is a foreigner, at a time when China is particularly sensitive about how it is understood and treated by the world.

“A lot of people said, ‘Oh, is it because Kim is an American and so she’s too strong-willed, or her personality is too strong?’…Some others have asked whether she is making a big fuss over a small issue,” says Feng Yuan, founder and chair of the Anti-Domestic Violence Network in Beijing. “This shows that in terms of the public perception of domestic violence, we still have a long way to go.”

Read more about domestic violence in China via CDT, including a recent article in Ms. Magazine, “Wives Caught in China’s ‘Web of Abuse.’“

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The latest government figures reveal that one quarter of China’s women have experienced domestic violence. Yet feminist activists say that figure is understated.

Li Ying, director of the Yuanzhong Gender Development Center in Beijing, says that many women do not admit that they are victims of domestic violence. “Ask a woman if she has experienced domestic violence and she will say, ‘Oh no, of course not!’” says Li. “Ask her if her husband has hit her and she will say, ‘Yes.’”

Even when Chinese women report domestic violence, the police are usually incapable of protecting them. Li acted as the attorney for the parents of Dong Shanshan, a woman murdered in 2009 by her husband after she had called the police eight times to report domestic violence. After Dong’s death, her husband was sentenced to just six and a half years in prison for “ill-treatment” of a spouse.

Read more about domestic violence in China via CDT.

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Xiao Baiyou, a father of four, claims to spend 90 percent of his time and energy on parenting. He rules with absolute authority at home, controlling nearly every aspect of his children’s lives — from cartoons, snacks, and pocket money to extracurricular activities and their friends.

“As kids, they have no judgment about what’s right and wrong, so I teach them,” according to his book that has become a bestseller since being published on June 1.

Even when the wolf father is away from the lair on business, his children must call him for permission to drink sodas. Those caught violating the wolf father’s rules can expect physical punishments, he writes.

A Global Times profile on Xiao last week detailed the disciplinary strategy he long-employed with his four children, three of which have already entered Peking University, and a belief in “stick parenting” that “would see Xiao imprisoned for child abuse in many countries”:

Xiao has his own rules and lengthy self-justifications. He summarized several principles of his punishments: He only beat hands and legs, a lengthy lesson always preceded the physical punishment to justify his beating, and whenever one child is punished, the other three were required to stand besides to witness their siblings’ pain. Any yelling out or tentative move away from the falling cane would only result in more punishment.

He stopped beating his children when they turned 12, as he believes that above that age, the kids’ personality and habits are pretty much formed, and further beating would only bring more harm than good.

Xiao had a price tag for each error a child made. A mistake in an exam meant five blows, and a stop-over at a classmate’s house after school 10 blows, as did talking back to your parents or telling a lie.

“I never felt soft-hearted when I was beating them. Just like the national law, the family rules can’t be easily broken by any kinds of excuse. But on top of that, I will make sure that they know I do this only for their own good,” said Xiao.

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Kim Lee, wife of the “Crazy English” founder Li Yang, also posted several messages together with Monday’s picture lashing out at Li’s irresponsibility. 

Lee wrote, “I am done waiting for you to face your responsibilities as you continue promoting yourself! I didn’t post all the photos, but you seem to have forgotten how unacceptable your actions were. Only your hands are stronger than mine Li Yang. My character is kindhearted but not weak!”

Meanwhile, Lee stated her fearlessness to pressure imposed by Li Ning, the sister-in-law. In another message posted on Monday as well, she wrote, “…dear sister-in-law: I know my home is in your name. I don’t care if you refuse to pay the management fee. This does not scare me.”

In addition to the comments made by Lee yesterday, Shanghaiist also posted an announcement by Li Yang on Sina Weibo last weekend that he has decided to convert to Islam:

In a tweet on Sina Weibo, Li said,

” 我打算学习和信奉伊斯兰教，就因为《古兰经》中的一句话：学者的墨汁贵于烈士的鲜血。让我们真正去了解伊斯兰教！我为我以前对伊斯兰教的误解而感到羞耻！万物非主，惟有真主，独一无二。”I have decided to learn and to believe in Islam because of a verse in the Quran which says the ink of scholars is more precious than the blood of martyrs. Let us all understand the true Islam! I am ashamed of my previous misconceptions on Islam! There is no God but Allah.

 See also previous CDT coverage of domestic violence in China.

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A report from the All China Women’s Federation released last year found that 64 percent of Chinese adults have experienced violence at home at some point. Another study from from the China Law Institute estimates that more than one-third of Chinese families have experienced domestic abuse and the vast majority of victims are women.

Yet this is also a society where few people are willing to talk openly about domestic abuse. It’s unusual to discuss one’s private problems outside the home, and domestic violence is still largely considered a family affair.

Advocates hope the pending passage of the country’s first domestic-abuse law could change that, and make families more aware of the problem.

China Daily has more on the law, which has been in the works for years, but may finally be passed:

Many countries have set up laws to prevent all forms of violence against women, including domestic abuse. In China, many regulations have been issued to punish perpetrators, but they are scattered through different laws, said Liu at the Women’s Studies Institute.

“To better protect women’s rights, we need a dedicated law,” she added.

Chen Wei, a Beijing-based attorney specializing in marriage cases, said the most difficult thing for victims is proving their physical and mental injuries.

Even if violent partners are punished, they are often only given short-term detention or ordered to pay compensation, which does little to solve the problem, she said.

Liu agreed and urged legislators to include heavier punishments in the new law. It should also clarify the responsibilities for all relevant departments, she added, such as what police stations and courts should do to bring an end to violence in the home.

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The death of a young Chinese bride in 2009 under the fists of her husband shocked the public about the lack of protection for victims of domestic violence. Now, lawmakers have a national anti-domestic violence bill to consider.

When other brides would have been enjoying their honeymoons, Dong Shanshan was calling the police.

In the next 10 months, her calls became more and more desperate as her husband, Wang Guangyu, repeatedly beat her till she passed out and kidnapped her when she escaped. Her eight calls to the police did nothing. They declined to intervene in the affairs of a married couple.

It wasn’t until Dong was lying on her deathbed with a belly swollen from hemorrhage that the police were ready to listen to her account. By then, it was too late.

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An examination conducted by the Shanxi Women’s Federation on homicides committed by women in Shanxi Women’s Prison showed that in 45.3 percent of cases, the offenders were unable to bear their husbands’ violence, Xinhua News Agency reported Thursday, which was International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

“More than half of the women prisoners committed crimes because of domestic violence,” Li Yue’e, chairman of the Shanxi Women’s Federation, told Xinhua. “Domestic violence is a major reason for the growing rate of divorce and juvenile crime.”

[...] According to a survey by the All-China Women’s Federation (ACWF), domestic violence exists in 31 percent of the 270 million families in China, with 90 percent of the violence committed by men.

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Anyone who revels in shaming queue-jumpers in China might take this as a cautionary tale:



According to a report in Zhengzhou’s Dahe Bao, a motorist waiting to gas up at a filling station died on Tuesday at the hands of a trucker who refused to get in line. An eye-witness set the scene for the paper:

He pulled in but didn’t queue up. He pulled straight up to the pumps and asked the attendant to refill his tank. One of the men waiting behind him was infuriated, and tried to persuade him to wait at the back of the line. The guy who jumped the queue wouldn’t go along. The two began to argue, and then it came to blows. During the tussle, the guy who jumped the queue grabbed ahold of the gas dispenser and pounded the heck out of the other guy, and right away his head began to gush blood and he dropped unconscious to the ground.

Wednesday’s initial report didn’t say whether recent shortages at the pumps played any role in the incident, though Reuters made the link and led on it. A day after the run-in, the government announced hikes in the price of gas and diesel, effective Thursday.

Lest one think all Henanites have chips on the shoulder causing them to commit acts of lunacy, deceit, or barbarism – just a stereotype, but one viral enough to make the The Wall Street Journal – Wednesday’s China Youth Daily carries a weightier report of one woman’s decade-long battle simply to prove herself sane.

CYD investigative journalist Liu Wanyong, who exposed a retired mayor’s mafia-style business empire last year and weathered tremendous physical and legal risks in the process, heads down to Kaifeng to take on the case of Jiang Fan.

(...)
Read the rest of Just Your Average Day Of News Out Of Henan – Jonathan Ansfield (414 words)

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A group of women in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu are proving the old adage that goes ‘hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.’

Under the banner Women’s Rights Protection Investigation Centre (WRPIC), a growing team of women are cruising the streets of the Sichuan capital, on the hunt for wife-beaters and cheaters.

The group was founded by 38-year-old divorcee Yan Guoqiong, who first suspected and through her own investigation confirmed her then-husband was being unfaithful just three months after their marriage in 1994.

Thanks to Hong Kong Entertainment Review

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China has witnessed a significant rise in divorce cases with the figure touching 1.613 million last year.According to Civil Affairs ministry statistics, the cases of divorce registered 21.2 per cent increase over 2003.

A recent survey conducted by the All-China women’s federation showed the country has also registered a Significant increase in domestic violence also as 30 per cent of the Chinese families were affected by it. Of the 270 million families in China, more than 100,000 break up every year because of domestic violence, it said.

See also “Forum held to promote harmony in families” from Xinhua.

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