Israel, Palestine and the United Nations
Yes to Palestinian statehood
Efforts to stop the Palestinians from winning statehood at the UN are misguided and self-defeating
BEIJING — For a nation not yet inured to lurid and senseless crime, a report that a former civil servant in central China kept six women enslaved in an underground** bunker** — and that he killed two of them — was shocking enough.
But perhaps almost as disturbing, at least to some readers, was that the journalist who exposed the crime more than two weeks after the suspect’s arrest was detained by security agents who accused him of revealing state secrets.
After his release from questioning on Thursday, the reporter, Ji Xuguang, wrote an article that accused the authorities of trying to keep the public in the dark about a** heinous** crime that unfolded less than two miles from the city’s public security bureau.
“I was only thinking about how to make my story as accurate as possible and to satisfy the public’s right to know, but I soon discovered that I failed to address the most important issue — face,” wrote Mr. Ji, a reporter for Southern Metropolis Daily, one of the country’s most aggressively independent publications. “Before the truth becomes a state secret, the public and myself need answers.”
Still, much of the national media on Friday were mesmerized by the horrifying details of the case, which took place in the city of Luoyang, in Henan Province.
According to Mr. Ji’s account, the suspect, Li Hao, 34, kidnapped the women, ages 16 to 24, from the karaoke parlors where they worked and imprisoned them in a 215-square-foot dungeon he dug beneath a rented basement space. Over the course of two years, Mr. Li repeatedly forced the women to have sex with him, Mr. Ji said.
According to a police official who provided details to Mr. Ji, the suspect kept his captives perpetually starved so they would have little energy for escape, but he also gave them two computers on which they could “kill time” by watching movies and playing games. Mr. Li, who is married with an infant son, lived elsewhere in the city.
Mr. Li’s arrest came on Sept. 6, when one of the women escaped and found her way to the police.
Mr. Ji said the rescued women were still in police custody on suspicion that they had a hand in the murders of the two women.
In his posting on Friday, Mr. Ji said he stumbled upon the story this week after spending a few days in Luoyang to investigate the murder of a local television reporter. In his follow-up article, he said his questioners deemed the case a state secret because, he later learned, they feared that its revelation might tarnish Luoyang’s quest to become a “Civilized City” as part of a national competition.
Mia Li contributed research.
Search OED
inure
1.1 trans. To bring (a person, etc.) by use, habit, or continual exercise to a certain condition or state of mind, to the endurance of a certain condition, to the following of a certain kind of life, etc.; to accustom, habituate.
**lurid **
a : causing horror or revulsion : gruesome
b : melodramatic, sensational; also : shocking
bunker
c.4.c A military dug-out; a reinforced concrete shelter.
**heinous **
[a. F. haineux, in OF. haïnos, haïneus (12th c. in Hatz.-Darm.), f. haine hatred, f. ha-ïr to hate.]
1.1 Hateful, odious; highly criminal or wicked; infamous, atrocious: chiefly characterizing offences, crimes, sins, and those who commit them.
mesmerize
v. 施以催眠术, 迷住, 迷惑
parlor
a.B.I.2.a In a mansion, dwelling-house, town-hall, etc., orig. A smaller room apart from the great hall, for private conversation or conference (e.g. a banker’s parlour, the Mayor’s Parlour in a town-hall). Hence, in a private house, the ordinary sitting-room of the family, which, when more spacious and handsomely furnished, is usually called the drawing-room. Formerly often simply = ‘room’ or ‘chamber’, sometimes a bedchamber.
dungeon
2.2 A strong close cell; a dark subterranean place of confinement; a deep dark vault.
Man **allegedly **raped six women held hostage in rooms he had dug under rented apartment, local newspaper reports。
alleged:
1.1 Produced in court, brought forward or adduced as legal ground, or as a reason.
1613 Shakes. Hen. VIII, ii. iv. 225 The sharp thorny points Of my alleadged reasons. 1689 Tryal of Bish. 26 The Fact alleadged in the Commitment. 1790 Paley Hor. Paul i. 4 The coincidences alleged. 1840 Hood Up Rhine 326 The alleged reason for my recall. 1844 Lever Tom Burke xxxiv. (1857) 324 The charges alleged against me.
2.2 Cited, quoted (properly as an authority).
c 1449 Pecock Repr. iii. xvii. 391 Poul also in his alleggid text. 1559 Morwyng Evonymus Pref., The authors alledged in this Boke. 1656 Bramhall Replic. iii. 149 The Author alledged, doth testifie. 1836–7 Sir W. Hamilton Metaph. xxxvii. II. 334 Which Aristotle has so well illustrated in the passage alleged to you.
3.3 Asserted as capable of proof; hence, asserted but not yet proved; or, asserted but not admitted.
a 1674 Clarendon Hist. Reb. I. iii. 139 All the particulars alleadged. 1828 Scott F.M. Perth III. 241 During his alleged illness. 1855 H. Spencer Psychol. (1872) I. iv. iii. 420 This alleged explanation‥is simply a disguised mode of shelving them as inexplicable. 1876 Freeman Norm. Conq. I. 734 The alleged parentage of her son was generally doubted.
It described the rooms the women ate, slept and defecated in as **dank **and smelly.
**dank **
本义是露珠。
†1.1 Wet, watery, wetting: a.1.a said of dew, rain, clouds, water, etc. Obs.
b.1.b said of marshes, fens, soaking ground, humid tropical forests, and the like.
2.2 Damp: with the connotation that this is an injurious or disagreeable quality. a.2.a of fog, vapour, the air, weather, etc.