Nine people have been arrested in China on suspicion of violently assaulting several women at a restaurant.
Surveillance footage from a barbecue restaurant in Tangshan, northern Hebei province, timed at 2:40 a.m. Friday, shows one of the men approaching a table where a group of four women is sitting. Woman sitting and putting her hand on a woman’s back.
She rejected him several times before he slapped her, prompting her to fight back, causing an altercation.
A group of men entered the restaurant and assaulted the woman and her dining partners, including shoving them to the ground, kicking and throwing chairs at them.
Footage from outside the restaurant shows assailants dragging the woman who denied the man’s advances before she was beaten, with passersby and others looking on.
Images of her lying on a stretcher, with her face swollen and covered in blood, as well as CCTV of the attack caused outrage online.
All nine suspects were arrested on Saturday, according to a statement by authorities.
Two of the women suffered non-life-threatening injuries and are being treated at the hospital.
Their condition was reported as stabbing and two others suffered minor injuries.
One Weibo user who was one of the first to post it described it as “heartbreaking”, adding: “It means it’s very unsafe to eat out now, do we have to bring our do you go everywhere? no different from thugs”.
By Sunday, the footage had received more than 68 million views and the video of the outside assault had been taken down.
Social media users condemned the attack and criticized Tangshan police for being slow to arrest the suspects, and the incident also renewed conversation about the treatment of women in China. Country.
Earlier this year, another viral video shows a woman chained to a wall in a hut, sparking an outcry after officials denied she was a victim of human trafficking.
She was later found to have been sold as a bride.
