Chinese police have launched an investigation into alleged child abuse at a Beijing preschool after parents found apparent needle marks on toddlers, sparking new outrage days after a scandal at another daycare.
Distraught and angry parents also reported that children were given unidentified pills at RYB Education New World (紅黃藍) kindergarten, run by a company that started trading on the New York Stock Exchange in September.
The Chaoyang District government said police opened an investigation after parents called the authorities on Wednesday to report the suspected abuse.
Photo: Reuters
Authorities declined to provide more details about the allegations.
RYB apologized to parents and said it was cooperating with the police investigation.
“We are currently working with the police to provide relevant surveillance materials and equipment. The teachers in question have been suspended,” the company said in a statement on a Chinese microblogging site.
Furious parents on Thursday gathered outside the school, footage from state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) showed.
CCTV showed images of apparent needle marks on some children.
Caixin magazine said eight children had such marks and that the incidents occurred in two classes with children aged between two and six.
“I asked my child after I heard what other parents said and my child said that they had taken two white pills after lunch, and slept after eating the pills,” one father told CCTV.
RYB Education directly operates 80 kindergartens and franchised another 175 in 130 cities across China for children ranging from newborns to six-year-olds, according to its NASDAQ listing.
RYB already had to apologize in April and suspended the head of a Beijing kindergarten after admitting that teachers committed “severe mistakes.”
The latest allegations came a week after Chinese online travel agency Ctrip suspended two officials after footage emerged of workers abusing toddlers at a company daycare in Shanghai.
The clips showed young children of Ctrip.com International Ltd's (攜程) employees being roughly handled and force-fed what parents claimed was spicy mustard at the company’s Shanghai headquarters.
Police detained three daycare staff for suspected abuse.
The RYB case triggered a new bout of outrage on Chinese social media.
“From Ctrip to RYB, what future do we have if we can’t even protect children, let alone the so-called Chinese dream,” one microblog user wrote, referring to the slogan used by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to call for a rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
Another called for cameras to be placed inside every kindergarten classroom, saying: “It’s not just this one kindergarten that has a problem.”
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
A Zurich city councilor has apologized and reportedly sought police protection against threats after she fired a sport pistol at an auction poster of a 14th-century Madonna and child painting, and posted images of their bullet-ridden faces on social media. Green-Liberal party official Sanija Ameti, 32, put the images on Instagram over the weekend before quickly pulling them down. She later wrote on social media that she had been practicing shots from about 10m and only found the poster as “big enough” for a suitable target. “I apologize to the people who were hurt by my post. I deleted it immediately when I
RSS