CCTV footage: Men mercilessly beating women in China sparks outrage, nine arrested

CCTV footage showed men viciously attacking a group of women at a restaurant in China's northeastern city of Tangshan. The video has sparked an outcry as people on Chinese social media urge to punish those who are accused. The brutal incident in Hebei province renewed a debate over the status of women and the state of feminism in China.

In the video, that has gone viral on China's Twitter-like social media platform Weibo, a man can be seen approaching a table at a barbecue restaurant. He was visibly seen touching a woman around 2:40 am local time on Friday. When she pushed him away, he was seen striking her.

Moments after that, a group of men can be seen brutally attacking the woman and her apparent friends who were dining with her. As per the local police, two women had sustained non-life-threatening injuries during the brawl. They were being treated in the hospital.

Watch the video here (Sensitive video. Viewer discretion is advised):

On Saturday (June 11), the local Public Security Bureau said in a Weibo post that nine people have been arrested and a probe was underway.

As quoted by news agency Reuters, China Women's News, published by the All-China Women's Federation, said in a commentary that "there can only, and must only, be zero tolerance for such vicious cases of serious violations of women's rights and interests."

The violence led to hundreds of millions of comments on Chinese social media. "All of this could happen to me, could happen to any of us," said one commenter in a post liked over 100,000 times.

"How is this sort of thing still happening in 2022?" wrote another. "Please give them criminal sentences, and don't let any of them get away."

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