Sexual assaults galore at China water festival
August 24, 2012 12:12
Several women were stripped and sexually assaulted during festivities to mark a local water festival in China's island province of Hainan, coinciding with the Chinese Valentine Day.
The festival, held on Thursday at the Qixian Square, Baoting Li and Miao autonomous county, attended by several tourists turned into a nightmare for women as some men went baresark and tore down the clothes of the ladies and sexually assaulted them, official media in Beijing reported on Friday.
Several newspapers carried pictures of women in distress being rescued by their friends. Reports said police personnel who rushed to the scene detained several men.
Li Min, a tourist from Wanning in Hainan who has participated in the festival for the past five years, said four or five women were assaulted after an opening ceremony, and the attackers were taken away by police.
"There were more than 1,000 people on the square playing with water at that time, and most of them were very young," he told state-run China Daily.
"I saw a man take off a young woman's clothes, while similar attempts were made on four or five other women who were playing with water in different areas of the square at the same time," he said.
"Later, police came to restore order, took the men out of the square," Li said.
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