human flesh search engines go to court

Last December Jiang Yan, a 24 year old clerical worker, committed suicide after blaming her emotional state on her husband's behaviour. Shortly before she died, she published his name and address on her death blog. After her death, relatives took up the campaign, with the result that the husband, Wang Fei, was subjected to a considerable amount of real world and virtual harassment. He is now suing the relatives.

Some netizens went as far as going to the home of Wang Fei’s parents, painting slogans like “forced the death of a good wife”, “scum”, etc. Wang Fei later filed suit against Zhang Legi and all three websites. So, “the human search engine” has entered the legal process for the first time, and has been called “the first human search engine case”

Human flesh search engines have been around in China for long enough for Jiang Yan to be aware of them when she wrote her final blog entries, which suggests a revenge suicide. The practice used to be to kill yourself on your enemies doorstep to shame him, her or them. I wonder what provisions there are in Chinese law about that. It also reminds me a bit of the revenge suicide phenomena seen in Japan, where individuals have jumped in front of bullet trains because their relatives are liable for the costs associated with the clean up and delays in services.

Comments

[st pete blood clean up]

should be interesting to see if she wins or not, I hear China is big on the rights of individuals...

[jamie]

Interesting site. Did you get here through googling "human flesh" by any chance?