Officer in Action

March 19, 2010

While in Beijing one year, a friend of my wife’s shared gossip about a neighbor.  The neighbor was a single man in his forties. His former girl friend was in her early twenties, who called the police from his apartment.

Chinese Police in Action with a Murder Suspect

“He raped me. Arrest and punish him,” she said to the officer. All the neighbors crowded in the hall outside the open door. The officer heard both sides. There was no rape. It turned out that the woman had discovered he had another girlfriend.

“He asked me to strip,” she said. “He is corrupt.”

The officer studied her and then the man—the woman was taller and twenty pounds heavier. “You have legs. You could leave. But you stripped. Is that correct?” There was the sound of laugher from the hallway audience.

She nodded.

“No laws have been broken. He is a single man and can date anyone he likes. You could have said no. If you feel that you have been abused, there’s a woman’s organization that will help you. Do you want the phone number?”

“I already went to them. They won’t punish him either.”

The officer shook his head. “You will never come to this apartment again,” the officer said, as he wrote his verdict in a notebook.

China’s police do not have to read a suspected criminal his or her Miranda rights. In China, The police have more power. We often hear about China’s human rights violations. Read China’s response in China chides U.S. on rights record.

Before learning more about China’s legal system, understand moral foundation of the Middle Kingdom

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

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