Chinese police said yesterday they had detained a young couple suspected of burying a woman alive after running her down in their car, in a case that has caused a storm of public anger.
Police in Zhejiang Province suspect the couple hit the 68-year-old woman while driving home from a night of drinking at a karaoke bar on April 30 and buried her to avoid punishment, the China Daily newspaper said.
“It’s certain the woman was not dead when buried,” a Zhejiang police officer surnamed Zhou (周) told the China Daily.
“Legal medical experts detected particles identical to those in the surrounding soil in her lungs, which indicates she was still breathing,” he added.
A local police officer contacted by telephone confirmed the pair, both aged 25, had been detained and were suspected of burying the woman.
It is not clear whether they knew that the woman was still alive when they buried her. Her body was found buried near a remote construction site on May 1, not far from the car allegedly driven by the young couple.
The case has reignited the debate over a perceived decline of public morals among China’s increasingly wealthy population after the death last year of a two-year-old girl who was ignored by passers-by as she lay injured in the street after being run over.
“We must look for the causes of [such behavior] in China’s education and social systems,” one user of popular microblogging service Sina Weibo posted.
“I guess this couple are bitter white-collar workers, who have housing and car loans to pay and family to support, but that is not a reason to tolerate this,” another posted.
The case also raised comparisons with that of Yao Jiaxin (藥家鑫), a 21-year-old music student who murdered a young mother after hitting her with his car in Xian in 2010.
The victim only suffered minor injuries, but instead of helping her, Yao stabbed her eight times before fleeing the scene.
He was later caught and executed, reportedly admitting that he killed her because he feared the “peasant woman would be hard to deal with.”
His case prompted hand-wringing over the country’s so-called “rich second generation,” the wealthy offspring of people who have prospered in China’s boom.
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
MORE BANS: Australia last year required sites to remove accounts held by under-16s, with a few countries pushing for similar action at an EU level and India considering its own ban Indonesia on Friday said it would ban social media access for children under 16, citing threats from online pornography, cyberbullying, online fraud and Internet addiction. “Accounts belonging to children under 16 on high-risk platforms will start to be deactivated, beginning with YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live and Roblox,” Indonesian Minister of Communications and Digital Meutya Hafid said. “The government is stepping in so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giants of the algorithm. Implementation will begin on March 28, 2026,” she said. The social media ban would be introduced in stages “until all platforms fulfill their
RSS