A video showing three women being attacked by a group of men in a restaurant in China’s Hebei Province earlier this month went viral on the Chinese Internet, leaving those who have seen it filled with anger.

The attack started when one of the men sexually harassed one of the women. After the three women turned down the man’s advances, he and his friends dragged one of the women outside by her hair, and then stomped on her head, smashed bottles on her body and hit her with chairs.

One day after the video was posted, police announced that they had arrested the nine offenders, saying that they would be brought to justice.

However, there is little credibility to the statement.

As Confucius said: “The country can hardly stand if the people have no trust in it.”

The outrage generated by the attack proves that there is little trust in the Chinese government nor the information Chinese authorities release to the public.

In a society where only one voice can exist, even if the voice for once speaks the truth, the public would believe that it is a lie.

Confusing cause and effect, some people have linked the issue to the highly sensitive topics of women’s rights and “gender confrontation.” The core of the incident is gang violence, not gender. Had the victim been a man, the outrage would not have been as strong.

Personally, I have been on the fence about women’s rights in China, because I believe that women’s rights must be based on human rights. At a time when the most basic human rights are abused in China, what is the point of discussing women’s rights?

Human rights are a universal value that must be defended, and violence against humans must be prosecuted and punished.

Other incidents sparked similar outrage over the past year — from a chained mother of eight in Xuzhou to a woman who was stripped of her clothes on a subway train in Xian, and a woman who was forced into prostitution while searching for a job in Shanghai.

However, the authorities in charge mostly settled the matters by leaving them unsettled.

Was the public furious about the incidents? Although people were angry when the news broke, anger came and went easily. As history keeps repeating itself, people also keep forgetting it.

Looking at China over the past decade or so, rule of law, most freedoms and human rights have slid backward. This is due to ever-tightening controls that are put in place for the sake of what is called “maintaining stability.” It is a stifling environment for artists and those working in the entertainment industry.

Censorship is nothing new in China, but the most recent assaults, and how the authorities dealt with them, brought heartache beyond words. After all, a woman being assaulted is someone’s daughter.

In the case of the restaurant attack, the core of the problem is not that no one stepped in on the woman’s behalf, it is that no one dared to do so, as China’s legal protections for those helping others are insufficient.

It is likely that the nine offenders will be punished severely, as this should serve the Chinese government’s objective to ease public anger.

It would mislead the public to believe that the problem could be solved by punishing those nine individuals. The real problem is not on an individual level, but with a flawed judicial system that fails to fully protect those who step up and act against grave injustice.

Bai Zhao is a freelance artist in Shanghai.

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