Brit beaten after alleged sex attack
A British man has been detained by police for indecency, after he was alleged to have molested a young Chinese woman around 11 pm on Tuesday evening, on Xuanwumenwai Dajie, Xicheng district, Beijing public security bureau (PSB) confirmed Thursday.
The PSB made the microblog announcement in response to a video, which was uploaded Wednesday evening. The three-minute clip, recorded on a cell phone, appears to show the man, who has not been identified, trying to commit a sexual act in public with the woman, who has also not been identified. The video had been viewed over 3 million times by late last night.
The video was captioned "Beijingers, remember this laowai's face. We'll beat him up every time we see him."
The man, wearing a turquoise top and dark trackpants, was standing between the legs of a Chinese woman lying on her back in a raised bed of flowers. The woman, her dress rucked up exposing her underwear, is audibly crying, screaming she does not know him and saying "bu yao," (no, no).
Then a Chinese passer-by intervenes, asking "what are you doing?" The foreign man mumbles inaudibly, and then the film cuts to a scene of the foreign man being chased and beaten by several Chinese male passers-by. He is then shown lying prostrate in the road, without visible signs of injury. Later, several Chinese men kick the prone man and curse at him, until they are restrained by an older man.
"We've nothing more to say besides the announcement," said PSB media officer Zi Xiangdong Thursday.
The announcement said that due to "public attention and inquiry," a drunk British man holding tourist visa, indecently assaulted a girl in public Tuesday night. He was stopped by passers-by, and detained at the scene.
The first Chinese man in the film seen intervening is a 24-year-old man, surnamed Wu, a security guard in the nearby China Co-op Group Building.
"After I grabbed his neck and saw he's a laowai, I felt more obligated to save the girl," Wu told the Global Times.
Wu claimed the incident happened right across the bicycle lane in front of the building, and said that more than 10 people were involved in the fight.
"When the girl screamed for help the first time, I thought it was a lovers' tiff," said Wu, "but after she screamed 'I don't know this guy', I realized something was wrong," said Wu.
"I went to the police station to make a statement, and I learnt the girl is only 18. Her life would have been ruined if we hadn't stopped him," said Wu.
Thursday, Wu was the only eyewitness who would openly talk. A number of local residents claimed to have witnessed the fight, but said that police had asked them not to talk to media while the police were also investigating the beating, a claim that could not be immediately verified with Zi.
"We are accused of fighting and told not to speak up by the police after catching a pervert to prevent a crime," said one man, sitting in front of the A Jian Beauty Salon, whose owner the man alleged had filmed the incident.
Xiao Lei, a sophomore college student, told the Global Times that he believed he had seen the man sexually harassing passengers in the subway at Yonghegong Station.
"He was making unspeakable movements with his penis obviously semi-erect in his pants to at least four girls, but no one said anything, neither those girls nor the passengers who saw it," said Xiao, who posted a picture of a shaven-headed man, wearing the same clothes, standing close to a woman on a subway train at 10:40 pm that night.
"I feel terrible that I didn't report it to the police right then, which would probably have stopped him hurting the other girl," said Xiao.
Liu Wenyi, a lawyer from Beijing Kangda Law Firm, said that the man may face 15 days detention, as police have charged him with molesting instead of the more serious crime of rape.
"He'll probably be deported after," said Liu.