China: Netizens arrested for gang rape scandal in Fujian

Yesterday (July 16) in early morning, twitterer amoiist sent out a mobile message to twitter saying: “I have been arrested by Mawei police, SOS.” And the second message is: “Pls help me, I grasp the phone during police sleep”. Since then, there isn't any update in his twitter.

His arrest was believed to be related to a gang rape scandal which the Fujian authorities have been trying to cover up. The sex scandal, titled as “Yan Xiaoling (嚴曉玲)much more miserable than Deng Yujiao(鄧玉嬌)”, was first posted in Kaidi forum in late June in re-posted in many major online forums. It tells the story of 25-year-old Yan Xiaoling who had been gang raped and killed by local triad, owner of a KTV, in Feb this year. The post also said that the KTV owner was connected with local authorities in Minxin province.

As the post caught the attention of millions of netizens, local authorities made a public statement explaining that Yan was died from hemorrhagic shock caused by ectopic pregnancy bleeding.

However, her mother said that hospital staff told her that her daughter was probably gang-raped by at least five people. When her body was delivered to the hospital, her underwear was nowhere to be seen and her uterus was torn and mutilated.

On 24th of June, Fuzhou police called a press conference and claimed that all the news concerning Yan were rumors. Apart from Amoiist, 6 other netizens have been arrested for posting the news. Fuzhou city police claimed that they were under the suspicion of “defamation” but yet to identify who exactly they are defaming.

On 15th of July, three human right lawyers, Lin Zhong (林忠), Lin Hungnan(林洪楠), Liu Xiaoyuan(劉曉原) tried to visit three of the arrested netizen Fan Yinqiong, You Jingyou in Mawei district police station but rejected. The accusation of “suspected defamation” has bee alleviated to involving “state secret issue”.

amoiist

Amoiist's real name is Guo Baofeng or Peter Guo (郭寶峰), a professional translator lives in Xiamen city, Fujian Province. His regular blog is amoiist.com. Recently he has uploaded the interview of Yan Xiaoling's mother who explained that her daughter was under threat by local triad and local authorities’ attempt in covering up the issue:

Last night, Mawei police contact Guo's supervisor and told he that Guo was under criminal detention. Many reporters had called up the police station to have fact check on the 6 arrest cases but the police replied: reporters don't have the rights to fact check this case! Guo twitter friends continue to update the news via twitter search: @amoiist and #amoiist.

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