According to the Righteousness Network, three Fujian netizens Fan Yanqiong, Wu Hua Ying and You Jingyou were arrested for "slander" after spreading rumors online about "Yan Xiaoling being gang-raped by eight people leading to her death". Now there is a new development in this matter. At 8:30 AM today, the case was brought to trial at the Mawei District Court of Fuzhou.
The prosecution confirmed that the trial would take place today.
The defense lawyer said the number of witnesses in this case might be the highest in the country.
Yesterday afternoon, a reporter called the Mawei District Procuratorate of Fuzhou, Fujian, to verify this matter. A staff member from the public prosecution department told the reporter that the "three netizens involved in the Yan Xiaoling case suspected of slander" would indeed go on trial on the 11th, but since it was not handled by themselves, they did not know the specific details. The staff member revealed that colleagues from the public prosecution department handling this case had gone to the Mawei District Court of Fuzhou on the afternoon of the 10th to communicate with the court regarding the trial.
Lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan is the defense lawyer for You Jingyou among the three netizens. He confirmed over the phone that he had received a telephone notification from the criminal court of the Mawei District Court that the case would go on trial at 8:30 AM on November 11th. Lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan is already in Fuzhou preparing for the case. The other two netizens's lawyers have also arrived in Fuzhou.
In Lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan's blog, the reporter saw an article written by him stating "this slander case was triggered by two articles and one video... investigated 57 witnesses, obtained QQ chat records, and the case file consists of sixteen large volumes. The number of witnesses in this case may very well be the highest in the country in a slander case."
Whether "fabricating facts" will become the focus of contention
Key figure Lin Xiuying's appearance in court is yet to be determined
After the online spread of "Yan Xiaoling is ten thousand times sadder than Deng Yujiao in Badong," multiple versions appeared. Some posts in their "important notice" section at the beginning claimed that Lige KTV was jointly run by Lin from the Minqing County Public Security Bureau, Lu from the same bureau, a prosecutor from the county procuratorate, and Nie, a mafia boss who had repeatedly committed crimes and evaded punishment.
According to You Jingyou's defense lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan, the basic facts described by "writer" Fan Yanqiong in the post were all based on Lin Xiuying's account, which was then organized and embellished before being published. During this process, an editor from an overseas website was even hired to "package" it. The prominent "important notice" in the original post was written by this editor. The claim of "eight people" in the post was guessed by Lin Xiuying based on four people in Nie's room at the time of the incident, plus the number of people singing songs. After integrating various "rumors" heard from Lin Xiuying, Fan Yanqiong processed them and completed the sensational online post.
As for whether there was "exaggeration" or fabrication of unfounded facts, Lawyer Liu emphasized that all of Fan Yanqiong's statements were made by Lin Xiuying. Lin Xiuying admitted in an interrogation record that most of the content in the post was what she said. Whether Lin Xiuying will appear in court on the 11th remains uncertain according to Lawyer Liu.
All three individuals involved were once petitioners
The lawyer believes that labeling it as "slander" is an excessive crackdown
A post titled "Minqing 'Yan Xiaoling' is ten thousand times sadder than Badong 'Deng Yujiao'" was reprinted 190,000 times, drawing numerous angry comments. To this day, when the title of the post is entered into Baidu and Google, nearly ten thousand related contents can still be retrieved.
According to media reports, Lin Xiuying, mother of Yan Xiaoling mentioned in the post, has a low level of education and does not understand computers or internet operations. Her narration was posted online after being processed by three netizens.
According to materials provided by the public security department, the post "Minqing 'Yan Xiaoling' is ten thousand times sadder than Badong 'Deng Yujiao'" that caused a sensation online was mainly written by netizen Fan Yanqiong. After the police issued a clarification announcement, netizen You Jingyou "still wanted to supplement some inappropriate parts of the post", and proactively contacted Yan Xiaoling's mother Lin Xiuying to produce a narrated video. When the police investigated those involved in the video shooting, they learned that Wu Hua Ying, who shot the video with You Jingyou, often interrupted the shooting to "teach Lin Xiuying to make it more vivid and touching." After editing, the video was uploaded online, forming a completely opposite "press conference."
The reporter saw online that self-identified "grassroots rights advocate" Fan Yanqiong recorded multiple instances of petitions and rights protection events in his blog. According to You Jingyou's defense lawyer Lawyer Liu, "enthusiastic" You Jingyou had once been a petitioner, and Wu Hua Ying had petitioned for eight years without success due to her brother's case.
Some media reported that after Fan Yanqiong was arrested, he issued a statement indicating that posting without necessary verification of the facts was "inappropriate."
Lawyer Liu believed that penalizing three netizens who merely spread unverified facts, only questioned without malicious intent, using criminal penalties, and even punishing the three netizens with the charge of "slander," shows signs of an excessive crackdown.
Related link: Online hype over Yan Xiaoling incident continues despite police response
In June this year, posts with titles such as "Minqing 'Yan Xiaoling' is ten thousand times sadder than Badong 'Deng Yujiao'" and "Heart-wrenching: Minqing frequently sees unnamed female corpses, Yan Xiaoling was gang-raped by eight people" appeared on forums and QQ groups of various websites, quickly becoming a hot topic online.
The party concerned in the post, Lin Xiuying, claimed that her 25-year-old daughter Yan Xiaoling was forced into prostitution by a mafia-like organization, "gang-raped by eight people" leading to her death, and mentioned "uterus removed" and other content, accusing local public security, procuratorate, and court agencies of co-running a KTV selling ketamine and forcing prostitution. Due to their interest relationship, they obstructed the accusations made by the deceased's family. Some posts even included dried-up and shriveled photos of Yan Xiaoling's corpse, making the content shocking. The posts spread rapidly across various forums, immediately drawing strong attention from netizens.
On the afternoon of June 24th, the Fuzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau held a press conference, announcing the results of the investigation. According to the police's forensic conclusion, Yan Xiaoling died from a ruptured ectopic pregnancy leading to hemorrhagic shock, and there were no issues of violence, poisoning, or gang-rape causing death. They denied that the Minqing Public Security Bureau and Minqing Procuratorate staff had shares in Lige KTV and responded to the questions raised in the post.
At the time, many media outlets in Fujian Province and nationwide reported on the police's public clarification. However, doubts resurfaced online. The focus of public opinion shifted from sympathy for Yan Xiaoling's plight and emotional condemnation of the police and mafia bosses to questioning and denying the police's public statements, with the controversy continuing.
Reporters Guan Shixin and Shi Tianyan