Mistresses exposed

Actors perform a scene in a Taiwanese TV drama where a mistress begs for the forgiveness of a wife. Photo: Wow News

Public shaming photos spread online, leave victims feeling cheated

Graphic photos of alleged mistresses being stripped naked by mobs of angry women seeking to publicly humiliate the accused are increasingly circulating on Chinese social media.

In a most recent case, images of a group of women photographed ripping the clothes from an unidentified woman on the streets of Puyang, Henan Province have gone viral since being uploaded on October 10.

The unedited photos show onlookers standing by as the victim was attacked by the gang.

The photos continue to circulate online despite local public security bureau officers requesting that websites remove them over concerns of privacy violations, according to the Zhengzhou Evening News.

A local policewoman, requesting anonymity, confirmed the incident with the Global Times. "The gang of four women attacked and sexually assaulted the victim on a street Friday morning," she said.

A criminal case has been filed and the case is under investigation, said the insider, without providing further details.

The incident is but one of many recent recorded assaults on alleged homewreckers circulating online, in which women are beaten, kicked and stripped by multiple assailants in public.

A three-minute video, titled "Mistress beaten and stripped at a mall in Heze, Shandong Province," was posted across multiple video-sharing websites in May. Three people - two men and one women - hurl verbal abuse, pull the victim's hair and forcibly take off her pants before dragging an alleged mistress into the street.

The video has received 620,000 views on popular video site iqiyi.com.

The majority of online comments praise the attack as a welcomed form of vigilante justice.

In many cases, blame is cast almost exclusively on the single woman while the infidelity of the married husband is largely overlooked.

Nude Internet celebs

A majority of Net users support the attacks, calling the actions "righteous" and the assaults "deserved."

On news website sina.com.cn, the Puyang spectacle garnered more than 13,700 comments since October 13, topping the website's "hot news list."

"Mistress who knows the man is married but enter in a relationship anyway deserve to be insulted and beaten," Web user Shuaiqide Langge commented on Sina's news page.

Perhaps a reason why authorities turn a blind eye to such attacks is that the idea of public shaming was, until recently, also a tactic frequently used by Chinese police.

In 2006, Shenzhen police officers paraded 100 prostitutes and their clients on the streets, attracting thousands of gawkers, according to a Xiaoxiang Morning Post report. The incident was met with criticism from the public and lawyers for privacy violations.