Cracks in the armour as voices refuse to quieten

Updated September 20 2012 - 2:43pm, first published September 15 2012 - 3:00am
Scared but determined ... Long Meiyi took the ultimate step of contacting a foreign journalist.
Scared but determined ... Long Meiyi took the ultimate step of contacting a foreign journalist.

Long Meiyi was 19 when she met the mining magnate who allegedly raped her at one of Beijing's most gaudy and exclusive nightclubs, the Softly Shaking Bar. She had initially received his overtures with the confidence that came from being raised in a family of senior officials in a country where political power and connections frequently trumps all else. The stepfather who raised her was vice-mayor in the industrial city of Liupanshui, in south-west China's Guizhou province, and her mother held a senior role in the city bureau of the Ministry of State Security, China's secret intelligence service. Grandparents on both sides fought for the communist revolution. But, when the girl's complaint vanished into the vortex of the city's legal-political system, the family found that the local red aristocracy had been outplayed by the provincial nouveau riche.

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