Chinese Blogger Killed During Livestream, Ex-Husband Gets Life Sentence

A Chinese court gave a death sentence to a man for killing his ex-wife, Amuchu,  during her livestream. The case reportedly raised nationwide outrage in China over domestic violence.

Amuchu, better known as Lamu was a 30-year-old Tibetan vlogger, died in September last year after being doused in gasoline and set on fire by her ex-husband Tang Lu. She was admitted to the hospital for two weeks before she succumbed to burn injuries.

Tang Lu reportedly had a history of violence. Amuchu divorced him in June 2020 just months before she was murdered by him at her father's home. Tang Lu was sentenced to death on charges of intentional homicide by a Aba Prefecture court. It is a remote rural region of southwest Sichuan with many Tibetan residents.

The court in its ruling said that Tang's crime "was extremely cruel and the social impact was extremely bad." His crime needed  “severe punishment” in accordance with the law. Last year, when Amuchu died in the hospital, dialogue around under-reported cases of domestic violence in rural china was initiated. The outrage was especially aimed at the atrocities that take place among ethnic minorities.

Amuchu was active Chinese version of TikTok named Douyin. She used to regularly post videos of her daily life. Sometimes she was seen cooking and lipsyncing to songs dressed in Tibetan clothing, sometimes foraging in the mountains.

Millions of users of Weibo and Douyin demanded justice for Amuchu using trending hashtags that were later removed. China criminalised domestic violence in 2016 but many cases still go under-reported in under-developed rural communities.

As per a survey of 2013 by the All-China Women's Federation, one in four married Chinese women suffers from domestic abuse. According to several local reports, the police do not take complaints of domestic violence seriously as the issue is often seen as a private family matter. When a Chinese couple files for divorce, they are given a 30-day "cooling-off" period, as per reports.