Kneeling for the Truth: The Journalist Silenced in Tangshan

Luna Tian
For the safety and privacy of those involved, some names have been changed.

Prologue: A Night of Violence

In the early hours of June 10, 2022, a brutal act of gender-based violence shook China.

At a barbecue restaurant in Tangshan, Hebei Province, a man named Chen Jizhi attempted to harass a woman at a neighboring table. When she resisted, he and a group of men accompanying him launched a ferocious assault on four women. The surveillance footage, later leaked online, showed the women being dragged, punched, and kicked by multiple attackers.

The video quickly went viral. Within days, the hashtag “Tangshan assault case” accumulated over 200 million views and hundreds of thousands of comments on Weibo. The country was gripped by rage—not only at the perpetrators, but at what the attack revealed about misogyny, impunity, and social decay.

Authorities responded with unusually swift action: nine suspects were arrested and the case transferred to Langfang city for independent investigation. But while the arrests were publicized, another truth began to disappear: the condition and voices of the women who had been attacked.

The Disappearing Truth

Despite the public’s demand for updates on the victims, information quickly dried up. No verified interviews. No medical updates. No press conferences. Just silence—and a growing haze of rumors.

Some claimed that one of the victims had died. Others speculated that the women had been warned into silence. Authorities began deleting posts, deplatforming accounts, and labeling online discussions as “rumor-spreading.” But censorship only deepened the public’s suspicion.

In the absence of credible, timely updates, speculation became inevitable. The government’s response—to erase voices rather than address them—reflected an old pattern: suppress uncertainty instead of confronting it.

And in the heart of that information vacuum stood a journalist, trying to tell the truth.

Enter the Reporter

Zhang Weihan, a reporter from Guizhou TV’s program Bai Xing Guan Zhu (“People’s Attention”), was among the few journalists who tried to follow the story on the ground.

Zhang traveled to Tangshan with all the necessary COVID documentation: a green health code, a negative PCR test. Yet upon arriving by train just after midnight, he found himself blocked from exiting the station.

Local staff claimed he hadn’t registered with the neighborhood committee 48 hours in advance. Zhang, coming from a low-risk area, was stunned. Was this pandemic protocol—or something else?

When the staff mysteriously disappeared, Zhang slipped out alone, soaked by heavy rain, and hailed a cab into the city. He checked into a small hotel, determined to begin work the next morning.

Arrested for Doing His Job

That morning, Zhang arrived at the infamous BBQ restaurant to investigate. Within minutes, police arrived.

They confiscated his ID and forcibly took him to a local station.

Inside, Zhang was verbally abused by officers. One of them, upon learning he was a TV reporter, shouted, “You call yourself a journalist? You’re uncultured and disgraceful!”

Then, the humiliation escalated: Zhang was violently pushed to the ground, his head forced down, made to kneel. His hands were pulled behind his back. A group of officers searched his body, seized his phone, charger, and belongings, and locked him in an interrogation room. For nearly the entire day, he was not allowed to leave.

It was not until late evening, around 9 p.m., that he was released—without apology, without any charges, and without a story.

Why This Matters

Kneeling has a particular resonance in Chinese culture. Historically associated with subjugation and confession, to force someone to kneel—especially a journalist—transcends physical violence. It is symbolic erasure, the state making the reporter bow to power.

Zhang’s treatment is not just about one man. It sends a message to every journalist in China: if you dare seek the truth, the state may strip you of your dignity, your rights, even your bodily autonomy.

It also sends a message to the public: that your right to know is secondary to political control.

What happened to Zhang was not an accident—it was a strategy.

A Dangerous Precedent

What began as gender-based violence in a barbecue shop became a crisis of governance. Tangshan’s response to public anger over the assault was, on the surface, efficient: arrest the men, signal control. But when journalists came to examine the deeper truths—Why did it happen? Who enabled this? How are the victims now?—the same state that promised accountability slammed the door shut.

In the case of Zhang Weihan, it did worse: it made him kneel.

This act set a precedent as dangerous as the assault itself. If local police can humiliate and detain credentialed reporters with impunity, what limits remain? How many more stories will never be told? How many injustices will never be known?

Even more disturbing is the silence of professional media associations. As of this writing, no public statement has been issued by the All-China Journalists Association. The profession appears abandoned, and those within it are left unprotected.

Conclusion: Tangshan’s Many Victims

There are many victims in this story.

The women in the restaurant, whose pain is now buried under layers of silence.
The citizens demanding truth, fed rumors instead of facts.
And the journalist forced to kneel, whose only crime was to investigate violence with a camera and a notepad.

What happened in Tangshan was more than a viral crime—it was a test. A test of how much truth a society can tolerate. A test of whether justice can exist without transparency. A test of whether dignity, once lost in the rain and the silence, can ever be restored.

We must remember this moment. Because a society that punishes those who ask questions is not just unsafe for journalists. It is unsafe for everyone.