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Questions over qigong and assisted suicide at Guangzhou murder trial

Posted: 07/30/2013 10:00 am

According to the US National Library of Medicine, qigong, when practised inappropriately, may induce abnormal psychosomatic responses and even mental disorders. This process is known as Zou huo ru mo (走火入魔), and it may be the reason behind one of the most peculiar and multi-faceted murder trials in Guangzhou this year.

Li Wei is on trial in Huangpu District Court after his wife was found burned to death on her bathroom floor on January 27 this year. Li’s defense is somewhat muddled as he has claimed that it was a tragically unsuccessful attempt to cure her many debilitating illnesses, but also hinted that it was an assisted suicide.

Li and his wife Han Mei got married in 2002 and, by all accounts, were a happy couple. They had never been known to quarrel or fight and lived a simple life in which the unemployed husband stayed at home and spent most of his time practicing qigong while his wife worked at a bookshop, in spite of suffering from several debilitating illnesses that meant she was in considerable pain most of the time.

Interested in Traditional Chinese Medicine, Li was known to try out a variety of healing methods on his wife, including moxibustion which involved scarring her skin.

Such scars, as well as cuts and bloodstains, were seen on Han’s body when she was found naked and face down on her bathroom floor by her 13 year-old son Qiangqiang on the night of January 27. Li claims not to remember what happened and his attempts to explain it have been as bizarre as they are confusing.

Li claims his wife wanted to be burned to “take away the pain” but it is not clear as to whether this was an ill-advised attempt at using an unorthodox healing methods or assisted suicide.

Li was initially thrown in jail but his lawyers are pushing to have him stay in a mental asylum instead as they say he was not responsible for his actions due to his qigong-induced mental illness.

However, this phenomenon is not clearly recognised in Chinese law, so the trial could have one or two more twists.

Haohao

Man convicted of rape in Guangzhou after failing to use condom during one night stand

Posted: 12/12/2012 7:00 am

A man who wined and dined a women the night he first met her on a subway in Guangzhou has been convicted of rape for failing to use a condom during their one night stand, according to The Daily Sunshine.

However, his sentence is just one year.

Last year, on the evening of May 24, A Min, a white collar worker, got on the subway at Yangsuan Station on Line 5 where she met A Bin for the first time. They started chatting and she asked him whether he would like to have dinner with her after she got off at the terminus, Wenchong.

Even though he was supposed to get off at Wencun, he agreed, and she suggested that they have drinks while eating to assuage her bad mood. When they got to A Bin’s intended stop, she reminded him to get off as, she said, she was only semi serious about the dinner invitation, but in the end, allowed him to come along.

On arriving at the terminus, he took her to a food stall where they had supper and 11 bottles of beer. He said he did not force her to drink. At 1 a.m. when he was starting to doze off, he said he told her to stop drinking, but A Min insisted on competing with him, and they continued until 2:20 a.m.

After paying the bill, A Bin then offered to take her to her home in Huangpu District.

Both parties agree that the above is all true. Here is where it gets tricky.

A Bin insists that they had a spontaneous one night stand and forgot to use a condom. A Min says she called her ex-boyfriend, who she is still close to, to come and protect her. She says she expressly turned down A Bin’s offer of sex, but he subdued her before raping her.

The next morning A Min asked him if he had used a condom. He said yes but when she went to the trash can to see if any condom had been disposed of, he confessed that he had lied. She then dialled 110 to report him for raping her and he tried to drag the phone off her, asking her why she was acting so differently to the “cute” girl he had met the night before.

A Bin later confessed that he had not asked for consent, but he assumed that A Min wanted to have sex with him. Accounts differ as to what state of consciousness A Min was in when they had sex.

Despite the seriousness of the conviction, Huangpu District Court has given A Bin a lenient sentence because it is his first criminal offense and the various shades of grey involved in the case.

A Bin confessed that he thinks one night stands are “immoral,” but continues to insist that he is not a rapist.

Last year saw a high profile case in which police ruled out the possibility of rape on the grounds that the alleged rapist had been wearing a condom. This caused much outrage at the time.

Haohao
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