Nine people have been arrested on suspicion of violently assaulting multiple women at a restaurant in China .
Surveillance video from a BBQ restaurant in Tangshan, a coastal city in the northern province of Hebei, at 2:40 a.m. Friday showed a man approaching a table where four women were sitting, before placing his hand on a from their backs.
She rebuffed the man several times and infuriated him before slapping her. The woman fought back, which sparked into a fight. A group of men entered the restaurant and began brutally attacking the woman and her tablemates, including pushing them to the ground, kicking them and throwing a chair at them.
More footage taken outside the restaurant appeared to show the attackers dragging the woman who had rebuffed the man’s romantic advances out of the restaurant and violently beating her while most bystanders and customers looked on. Footage of the attack and shocking images of the woman lying on a stretcher went viral online, sparking public outcry and renewed conversation about misogyny and mistreatment of women in China.
This follows the emergence of another viral video earlier this year showing a woman chained to a wall in a shack. The images sparked a huge public backlash after authorities initially denied she was a victim of human trafficking . It was later discovered that she had been sold as her wife.
According to a statement issued by the authorities, the nine suspects were arrested on Saturday.
Two women sustained non-life-threatening injuries and were treated at a hospital . His condition is reported to be stable. Two others were slightly injured.
The video of what happened both inside and outside the restaurant was just under five minutes long. The microblogging platform user Weibo, who was among the first to post the videos, said in a post that it was “heartbreaking” to watch.
“Does that mean going out to dinner is so unsafe now, we have to take men with us everywhere?” the post said. “[These men] are no different from thugs.”
The user refused to reveal the source of the videos, stating that it was “inconvenient” to do so. Footage filmed inside the restaurant had more than 68 million views as of Sunday, while video showing the assault outside the restaurant was removed. The attack and the slow pace of arrests by the Tangshan police were heavily criticized on social media.
“I am a woman and I have a daughter,” wrote a Weibo user with the handle BaobaomaoDaren.
“I wonder: while I create value for society and spread positive energy, will this society protect me and my daughter?”