A man has been jailed for one year in what state media said yesterday was believed to be China’s first prosecution of a male rape, in a country where homosexuality is still a sensitive subject.
A Beijing court convicted the 42-year-old man, identified by the alias Zhang Hua, of intentional injury after he sexually assaulted an 18-year-old male colleague in May last year, the China Daily said yesterday, citing a court official.
In the September ruling, the court also ordered Zhang to pay the victim 20,000 yuan (US$3,000) in compensation, the report said.
Zhang, a security guard at a sports center in Beijing, raped his colleague late at night in the dormitory they shared in the capital, it said.
The court found Zhang had “deliberately injured another person, resulting in minor injuries to the victim, which constituted the crime of intentional injury.”
Zhang, however, could not be charged with rape, because under China’s criminal law, the offense refers only to forcing a woman to engage in sexual intercourse against her will, the report said.
The newspaper did not explain why news of the case was emerging months after the decision, but said the case had been heard in closed session to protect the privacy of the victim.
Legal experts said the case had highlighted a flaw in China’s legal system and called for the law to be amended.
“If Zhang had sexually assaulted a woman, he would be charged with rape and face a jail term of at least three years,” Lu Zheng, director of the Beijing-based Zhongguangweitian Law Firm, was quoted as saying.
Homosexuality — officially considered a form of mental illness until 2001 — is still an extremely sensitive issue in China, and gays face crushing social and family pressure, despite gradual steps toward greater acceptance.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not