But Deng’s case eclipsed them all, racking up 4 million posts and counting, he said. Her story resonates with millions of Chinese who not only are fed up with low-level corruption but also prize chastity in young women, causes that transcend the political spectrum.
“Deng Yujiao is a metaphor for someone who fights back against officials, and of course the officials are those who spend the taxpayers’ money, who are so abusive to ordinary citizens and so corrupt,” he said. “It’s almost a stereotype of the online image of officials. That’s why this case becomes so big.”
As she described it to a lawyer, Deng was a waitress in a karaoke parlor in rural Badong County, a Hubei Province backwater along the Yangtze River. Like more than a few such venues, this one offered “special services,” or prostitution, in a backroom spa, the only room with hot water.
CASCADE
On the night of May 10, Deng said she was in the room washing clothes when a local official, Huang Weide (黃維德), came in and demanded that she take a bath with him. She refused, and after a struggle fled to a bathroom.
But Huang and two companions — including a second official, Deng Guida (鄧貴大), who was not related to Deng — tracked her to the bathroom, then pushed her onto a couch. As they attacked, Deng said she took a fruit knife from her purse and stabbed wildly. Deng Guida fell, mortally wounded.
Deng was arrested, investigated for involuntary manslaughter and after the police reportedly found pills in her purse, variously described as sleeping pills and antidepressants, they sent her to a mental ward. But when blogger, Wu Gan (吳幹) publicized her case, a cascade of posts crowned her a national hero for resisting abuse of power and demanded a fair trial.
Under public pressure, Hubei officials freed her on bail. Wu helped recruit a prominent Beijing law firm to represent Deng.
On May 22, Beijing censors ordered Web sites to stop reporting on the case. Four days later, TV and the Internet were cut off in Yesanguan, the town where the attack occurred. The official explanation for the shutdown was as a “precaution” against lightning strikes.
Spurred by the Internet frenzy, Chinese journalists converged on Badong County. But after censorship was imposed, local officials began screening outsiders and some journalists seeking to report there were beaten. Wu’s blog was shut down by censors.
Even Yangtze River boat service to Badong was suspended, ostensibly because the docks needed repair, after protesters vowed to hold a demonstration there.
The two surviving local officials who were involved in the assault have been fired, but no charges were brought against them.
The ruling on Tuesday, widely reported in state media, was a vindication for Deng and her Internet supporters. But the story may not end there.
Last month, a group of young people abruptly appeared in the middle of downtown Beijing, carrying on their shoulders a woman wearing a mask and wrapped in white cloth. They laid her on the ground and arranged signs around her, then snapped pictures.
The signs read: “Anyone could be Deng Yujiao.”
The photos appeared immediately on the Internet.
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