Professor's comments on rape draw outrage

A law professor's comments on a rape case drew serious criticism on Sina Weibo, China's most popular micro-blogging platform, on Tuesday.

The rape case involves the son of the famous Chinese tenor Li Shuangjiang and has been a hot topic on the Web since the case was revealed.

Li's son, a juvenile, was suspected of being part of a group of men who raped a lady who is said to be a bargirl.

“Raping a bargirl is less harmful than raping a gentlewoman,” Yi Yanyou, the professor of School of Law at Tsinghua University, said in a post.

Yi's words soon aroused a hot discussion. Yi later made a new posting, changing his words to “Raping a gentlewoman is more harmful than raping a bargirl, an escort or a prostitute”.

By 11 am on Wednesday, Yi's original post had been reposted almost 70,000 times and received more than 75,000 comments.

“Has your conscience been eaten by a dog?” a Weibo user commented.

“Professor Yi, don't you know that everyone is equal? I don't want to call names, how can you, a man with so much knowledge, say words like this?” another user wrote.

Yi later replied, saying, “I read the comment. Intolerable to the eyes. The Internet is the Internet. I cannot extravagantly hope that it can be a platform for rational dialogue.”

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