A man, while on a flight, decided to test an absurd guide he found online. He ended up touching a flight attendant inappropriately. As a result, the crew members angrily reported him for "sexual harassment". After being investigated by the police, due to lack of relevant legal basis, the police ordered him to "acknowledge his wrongdoing and repent", after which he wrote a confession of over a thousand words.
Tip-off: Male passenger sexually harasses a flight attendant
Yesterday at noon, a reporter received a tip-off: On a recently arrived China Southern Airlines flight, a male passenger was suspected of sexually harassing a flight attendant. After the crew members reported it, the police have already taken away the male passenger. The reporter then saw the 30-year-old male passenger, Mr. Song from Enshi, who was brought down from the plane by the police at the airport terminal police station. According to eyewitness passengers, they were on the China Southern Airlines flight 35XX from Shanghai to Wuhan. When the plane was flying, this passenger suddenly touched the knee area of a passing flight attendant, Xiao Shan. At that moment, Xiao Shan let out a shout and became very angry. Upon seeing this, the passenger quickly poured the remaining water from his cup onto himself. They also had an argument afterward, during which the passenger blamed the flight attendant for not being attentive enough. Many passengers criticized Mr. Song's behavior.
Subsequently, Xiao Shan and the crew members reported to the Tianhe Airport police while still in the air, stating that there was a passenger "sexually harassing" the flight attendants. At 12:38 PM, when the flight landed at Tianhe Airport, the suspected male passenger, Mr. Song, was immediately taken away by the airport terminal police station officers for investigation.
Police: Unable to define "sexual harassment"
According to Mr. Song's confession to the police, the other night, he accidentally browsed through Baidu posts online and found a post titled "How to Grope Flight Attendants." Many people commented on it, and he found it curious. While on the flight, he imitated the so-called "guide" step by step without realizing that the first step would provoke strong criticism from the flight attendant. He immediately poured water on himself according to the guide in an attempt to escape blame. Initially, he argued that he only touched the flight attendant's knee, which didn't constitute harassment.
According to the police officer, since China's Public Security Punishment Law only has explicit punishment provisions for lewd acts against women, although Mr. Song's behavior was extremely inappropriate, there is no legal basis to classify it as "sexual harassment." Therefore, the police ordered him to apologize to the flight attendant and write a self-criticism letter for reflection, and educated him accordingly.
Outrage: Airline urges Baidu to delete the "Harassment Guide for Flight Attendants"
Yesterday, the reporter searched using keywords on Baidu and found at least 16 pages with hundreds of posts all about such absurd guides on how to harass flight attendants. A relevant person from China Southern Airlines expressed great indignation about these absurd "guides" on Baidu. He said that many recent incidents of flight attendants being harassed on domestic flights were due to passengers being influenced by these posts. He hopes that Baidu will promptly delete such posts and avoid misleading passengers into making such absurd moves that harass cabin crew members. (Reporter Wan Qin, Communicator Lan Tian, Intern Feng Jiayuan, Du Yaxia)