Chinese Man is Executed for Killing Ex-Wife

The Daily Mail has reported that Tang Lu, a Chinese man who murdered his ex-wife, was executed on Saturday morning. Tang Lu murdered his ex-wife, Amuchu, by dousing her in gasoline and lighting her on fire while she was livestreaming on social media. At the time of the attack, which occurred in September 2020, there were thousands of viewers on the livestream. She sustained burns on 90 percent of her body and died from her injuries in the hospital, around two weeks after the attack.

Amuchu (pictured), known on social media as Lamu, was a 30 year-old Tibetan vlogger. Tang Lu had reportedly abused her throughout the pair’s marriage, which led to Amuchu divorcing him. They divorced in June 2020, only three months before the fatal attack. Tang Lu and Amuchu had two children together. She reportedly reported the domestic violence to the police while she and Tang Lu were married, but was told that it was a private, family matter.

Amuchu was a semi-famous Tibetan video blogger. She lived in the mountains of Aba, which is a remote, rural region of the southwest Sichuan province in China. Her followers were mainly drawn to her videos about rural life in the mountain province, and she commonly wore traditional Tibetan clothing.

Her death has drawn international outrage and attention to the problem of domestic violence, particularly the rate of abuse in China. According to a 2013 survey by the All-China Women’s Federation, approximately one in four married Chinese women have experienced domestic abuse. A UN study from the same year, which involved 1,000 men from a central county in China, reported that half of the men interviewed had admitted to using physical or sexual violence against a female partner during their lifetime. 

Some activists claim that the victims’ official complaints and reports of abuse are often not taken seriously by police until it is too late, as was the case with Amuchu. Such problems are commonly regarded as a family affair in China’s conservative culture. Additionally, there was a recent change to the country’s civil code which sparked both concern and outrage. China has introduced a mandatory 30-day ‘cooling-off’ period that couples must sit out after asking for divorce. This could potentially make it harder for victims to leave violent and/or fatal marriages.

The city of Yiwu, in the Zhejiang province, has recognized the depth of the problem and introduced a system that enables people who are getting married to perform a sort of background check on their partner, specifically to look for a history of abuse with past partners.

A court in the Aba Prefecture was quoted saying that Tang Lu’s crime “was extremely cruel and the social impact was extremely bad.” 

ABC News reports that the Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture Intermediate People's Court gave a short statement that Tang Lu’s execution had occurred early Saturday.