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Snapping photos and videos of individuals without their permission
Husband to sue over nursing mom photo
Shanghai Daily, December 3, 2015
A husband is threatening legal action after a picture of his wife breastfeeding her baby on the metro appeared online, according to Chinese Business View.
The man, surnamed Fang, has told the newspaper he had talked to a lawyer and was planning to sue the person who took the picture, a website which had reposted it, and Sina.com, which hosted both microblogs.
The picture was posted on November 27 with a caption berating the woman for "showing her private parts in public" and reminding her that she was on a Beijing subway, "not a bus from your village." It was reposted by a charity organization in the capital, Beijing Tale, sparking a heated online debate.
While some people said the woman should have covered herself up, many more expressed their support, turning their anger on the person who had taken the picture and the charity which had reposted it. Rather than being "a private part," the woman's breast is for providing food for a hungry baby, they said.
Even the United Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF, weighed in by saying that breastfeeding was the right of every mother and baby, even in public places.
On its microblog, it said: "Breast milk is the most natural and perfect food for babies, which is irreplaceable."
Both the person who took the picture, who posted under the name of Han Jia Xiao Guai Xue, and the Beijing charity have apologized for their actions.
Saying it had merely reposted the offending picture and caption, Beijing Tale, which shut down its microblog, added: "We don't object to breastfeeding but fully support it. Our point is that women can cover up in such circumstances or turn aside if having no nursing cover in a public place. We apologize for the inconvenience that the microblog has caused for all the people and will carefully select microblogs in the future."
The man who took the picture and posted it online said: "I sincerely apologize. My apology is not out of social pressure, but thinking from the mother's angle to understand her situation under those circumstances."
Fang said that on the day the picture was taken they had taken their daughter to see a doctor. The 3-month-old baby had been crying with hunger while they were on the subway.
"It was peak time in the afternoon and someone gave my wife a seat in the crowded metro," Fang told the newspaper.
"Since my daughter always vomits, so she can't be fed too much at one time. My wife fed her once in the hospital, but she was hungry again and cried on the Metro. My wife had no option but to feed her."
