Spring Break
Chinese woman fatally stabs Communist party official to fend off his demands for sex
GILLIAN WONG - Associated Press Writer
Issue date: 6/17/09 Section: News
BEIJING (AP) - A Chinese woman who became a folk hero after fatally stabbing a Communist Party official to fend off his demands for sex was freed by a court Tuesday, a decision that likely avoided a storm of public criticism over the carefully watched case.
Deng Yujiao, 21, was accused of stabbing the official with a fruit knife and injuring his colleague when the two inebriated men cornered her one night last month at the hotel she worked in as a karaoke bar waitress. Her popularity reflects widespread anger in China over abuse of power by communist cadres, officials and the security forces.
The Badong County People's Court on Tuesday found Deng guilty of causing injury with intent but spared her from punishment, bowing to popular support for a woman portrayed by many as a hero for lashing out against injustice.
Grass-roots civil rights activists had trooped to Badong in recent weeks to show their support for Deng, and her case sparked a flood of supportive postings on the Internet. Coverage of her case in the entirely state-controlled media was unusually sympathetic.
Posts in online forums called Deng "the best girl on the planet," composed lines of verse in classical Chinese that described her as "beautiful and fierce" and dedicated the lyrics of a popular love song to her.
A group of Peking University students last month staged a demonstration in front of a Beijing office building in which a woman wearing a face mask and bound from neck to feet in white cloth lay on the ground next to printed Chinese characters that read "Anyone Could Become a Deng Yujiao."
A similar public outpouring of sympathy followed the case of a man who confessed to killing six Shanghai police officers last year in revenge for allegedly being tortured while interrogated about a possibly stolen bike.
The official Xinhua News Agency said the court ruled that Deng should be spared punishment because the injury resulted from excessive force used in self-defense and that she had limited criminal responsibility because she was manic-depressive.
Deng Yujiao, 21, was accused of stabbing the official with a fruit knife and injuring his colleague when the two inebriated men cornered her one night last month at the hotel she worked in as a karaoke bar waitress. Her popularity reflects widespread anger in China over abuse of power by communist cadres, officials and the security forces.
The Badong County People's Court on Tuesday found Deng guilty of causing injury with intent but spared her from punishment, bowing to popular support for a woman portrayed by many as a hero for lashing out against injustice.
Grass-roots civil rights activists had trooped to Badong in recent weeks to show their support for Deng, and her case sparked a flood of supportive postings on the Internet. Coverage of her case in the entirely state-controlled media was unusually sympathetic.
Posts in online forums called Deng "the best girl on the planet," composed lines of verse in classical Chinese that described her as "beautiful and fierce" and dedicated the lyrics of a popular love song to her.
A group of Peking University students last month staged a demonstration in front of a Beijing office building in which a woman wearing a face mask and bound from neck to feet in white cloth lay on the ground next to printed Chinese characters that read "Anyone Could Become a Deng Yujiao."
A similar public outpouring of sympathy followed the case of a man who confessed to killing six Shanghai police officers last year in revenge for allegedly being tortured while interrogated about a possibly stolen bike.
The official Xinhua News Agency said the court ruled that Deng should be spared punishment because the injury resulted from excessive force used in self-defense and that she had limited criminal responsibility because she was manic-depressive.
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