ESWN translates two articles from Strait Metropolis Daily about the death of Yan Xiaoling, whose case drew a huge amount of online attention after eight netizens were detained after posting about it:
The post from the netizens told a very tragic story: Yan Xiaoling was threatened by a crime syndicate in Mingqing county and she was then gang-raped to death by eight persons. When she died, her vagina was ripped and her face showed a hideous expression. When her family tried to seek justice, the local public security units interfered and intimidated them. It turned out that the gang leader was a crime gang boss who collaborated with local law enforcement officials to open a KTV … this post disseminated quickly among the netizens. People on the Internet were outraged. The police immediately held a press conference to clarify matters, but the storm did not die down. Recently our reporter investigated the roles played by these netizens and the reasons why many netizens refused to believe the information released by the police.
In this Mingqing case, the Internet rumor and the statement from the public security bureau were two completely opposite versions. In the two phases of the debate, the credibility of the police was challenged … in the views of many people, the death of Yan Xiaoling was a mysterious case. The “mystery” was that the civilian and official versions were completely different, so that people feel perplexed.
In June this year, Internet posts titled “Yan Xiaoling of Mingqing is ten thousand times more tragic than Deng Yuqiao of Badong” and “Tragic beyond belief: frequent nameless female corpses show up in Mingqing, Yan Xiaoling was gang-raped to death by eight persons” began to show up in forums and QQ groups. This story quickly became a hot issue for discussion. The posts told a story. In this story, there are four distinguishing points that drew attention: First, 25-year-old Yan Xialoling was gang-raped by eight persons and suffered a terrible death. Secondly, the gang leader was named Nie Zhixiong. He was the boyfriend of Yan Xiaoling and a leader of a local crime syndicate. There was no way the deceased and her family could fight back. Thirdly, local law enforcement officers and the murderers owned and operated a KTV named Lige. This is a KTV which sells ketamine powder and forces women to prostitute themselves. It is a way for the owners to make money as well as have access to women. Ever since the Lige KTV opened up, there have been many anonymous female corpses found in the county. Fourthly, since important members of law enforcement agencies were in business with the murderers, the police did everything they could to make the family members shut up. This was a case of gross injustice.
In the posts, the death of Yan Xiaoling was linked via comparison with the well-known Internet case of Deng Yuqiao. This drew a lot of attention.
For more on this case, see “Hu Yong: Defamation Can No Longer Be Used to Restrict Netizen Speech” and “Guo Baofeng, Your Mother is Calling You Home for Dinner!” (With Slideshow)” from CDT.
