HONG KONG—A court in China handed down hefty sentences to members of a gang who carried out a brutal attack on several women in a restaurant three months ago that shocked the country with its violence and reignited debate on gender inequality.
Seven people were found guilty of taking part in the assault, and together with 21 other gang members of committing a string of serious offenses over the past decade, according to a social-media post by the Guangyang district court in China’s northern Hebei province. The gang received jail sentences of between six months and 24 years, it said.
The jail terms are expected to damp the debate on the lack of protection of women’s rights that the assault ignited, although the court didn’t address the issue directly in its five-paragraph account of the case and ruling. Under Chinese law, 25 years is the maximum sentence that can be given to any defendant found guilty of multiple crimes, short of life imprisonment or death. Other criminal activities carried out by the gang since 2012 included robberies, false imprisonment and running illegal casinos, the court post said.
Despite the brutality of the attack, the four women suffered minor injuries, the court’s post said. By convicting the perpetrators as part of a criminal gang and charging them with other crimes committed over years, the court was able to hand down sentences that would satisfy the public, lawyers unconnected to the case said. Still, they said, the opaque nature of the investigation and trial left it unclear how much of each sentence was connected to the restaurant assault and how much to the other offenses—or if the jail terms were appropriate punishment for what each defendant had done.
“Court verdicts are supposed to provide guidance on social values,” said Wang Shengsheng, a lawyer who specializes in criminal law with Guangdong Times Law Office, adding that the verdict had failed to ease the feelings of insecurity and anxiety felt by women in China because of the assault.
Chinese officials have been trying to guide public opinion about the nature of the assault, labeling it as pure gang violence rather than a women’s rights issue, said Yaqiu Wang, a senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch.
“Diverting the public’s attention from gender-based violence to violence related to gang members showcases the…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at WSJ.com: World News…