Why a teen bullying case in China set off protests and a crackdown

BEIJING - A widely shared video clip of a 14-year-old girl being beaten, kicked and tormented by other teenagers set off large protests in south-western China, with hundreds of residents accusing officials of letting the perpetrators off too lightly.

What began as a local outcry over school bullying in the city of Jiangyou, in Sichuan province, escalated into a broader confrontation with the authorities.

The police responded to the rallies with a forceful crackdown late on Aug 4, captured by residents in photos and footage.

Residents had demanded justice for the bullying victim and protested against the police’s use of heavy-handed tactics, saying it was suffocating their right to voice grievances.

“No to bullying,” residents chanted as rows of police officers stood nearby, according to one video that was shared widely on social media and verified by The New York Times.

“Give us back democracy,” they also shouted.

The footage of the tense stand-offs with the police also spread across China, where large protests are somewhat rare, before they were removed from social media.

The viral clip of the bullying showed the assailants taking the 14-year-old to an empty, unfinished building where they kicked, slapped and pummelled her as she knelt. The video prompted widespread outrage online, where many expressed concern about bullying and the need for accountability.

On Aug 4, the Jiangyou police issued a statement saying that they had investigated the incident, which they said took place on July 22.

Chinese news reports said, citing officials, that two of the attackers were ordered to attend a correctional school, according to the statement, and they also faced up to 15 days in detention.

The third girl and other onlookers were let off with warnings.

The parents of the victim complained that the punishment was too light. They took their grievances to the Jiangyou city government headquarters, where dozens, and then hundreds, of residents gathered to support them.

Many were incensed because they believed that the parents of the girl who was beaten were disadvantaged; her mother was deaf, according to Chinese news reports.

Tensions rose as the police tried to break up the crowd.

“Are you going to drag her away?” a man yelled at a police officer who appeared set to remove an older woman.

The officer shouted at the man: “Do you want to get dragged away?”

The crowd erupted in anger as the officers tackled the man and hauled him off.

The videos were scrubbed from Chinese internet sites, but some were shared with online accounts outside China.

Protests are not uncommon in China, but the ones in Jiangyou stood out because they grew larger than most and generated footage and images and intense nationwide attention, said Mr Kevin Slaten, the research lead for the China Dissent Monitor, which collects data on unrest in China by scouring social media.

Many protests in China are about unpaid wages or housing problems, such as apartments that people have paid for but remain unfinished.

But school safety issues, such as bullying, have also been a source of public anger, Mr Slaten said.

By calling for “democracy”, the protesters in Jiangyou most likely meant a broad demand for justice and fair treatment, Mr Slaten said.

“It can often be that, like we saw in Jiangyou, the protesters become more motivated when the authorities ramp up repression and the people feel even more indignation,” he said.

Still, the residents who protested in Jiangyou also sought to show that they were patriotic citizens trying to work within, not against, the system.

The beaten girl’s parents appeared to get on their hands and knees to beg an official for his attention, some videos showed.

At night, the protesters sang the national anthem while they faced off against police officers holding riot shields.

Acts like prostrating were “part of a longstanding cultural tradition in China where subjects petition benevolent officials to restore justice”, said Dr Diana Fu, a political scientist at the University of Toronto who studies protest and dissent in China.

By singing China’s national anthem, she added, the residents appeared to be “giving a nod to the central authorities’ rule while also sardonically mocking local authorities”.

By late Aug 4, the local authorities appeared to move in with greater force to break up the demonstrations. Phalanxes of police officers on foot pushed into the crowd, tackling people and dragging them away.

Online comments in China about the unrest were largely removed.

A woman in a shop near the Jiangyou government office who answered a call from the Times on Aug 7 said she did not know anything about the protests and hung up. NYTIMES