Saturday, Nov 17, 2012
CHINA - The father appeared calm while being attacked.
He seemed neither angry nor defensive while facing a barrage of slaps, punches and kicks on a street in Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu province in eastern China.
The attacker: His 14-year-old daughter, Xiaojin.
A video of the attack was uploaded online and immediately went viral, Hong Kong daily South China Morning Post reported.
The video attracted heated discussion online and offline, the report said. What upset many netizens was the fact that the father, who wasn't named, took all the slaps and kicks without even a murmur of protest.
Shock
While many viewers expressed shock at the video, others wondered why it happened.
Chinese media reports said that Xiaojin's parents had divorced when she was young. She was brought up by her grandparents and her father won custody of her this year.
Xiaojin claimed that her father often beat her when he was drunk. He also forced her to go to work with him and wait outside for him to finish, she said.
Xiaojin's father said he had beaten her only twice. He said he was being protective because he believed his daughter had befriended the wrong crowd.
In September, the girl ran away and her father began looking for her, eventually finding her in a hotel where she was working. He called the police.
The Hong Kong daily said the video was taken when Xiaojin's father tried to drag her home from the hotel.
He promised to give her more space in the future and an allowance to support her studies.
