Representational Image. AP
New Delhi: Police in eastern China apologised for publishing data of the region’s drink and drive cases this year, which allegedly highlighted the personal information of female drivers.
Following the massive backlash, the police department deleted the report and instead uploaded an apology on its Weibo account.
“We apologise to the public for the malicious effects caused by the carelessness in our work,” the issued apology read. “In the future, we will learn from this lesson and vet our articles’ content carefully to avoid similar situations from happening again,” it added.
Details report carried
The report published on the website mentions only female drivers’ names, registration details, time and location of arrest and the amount of alcohol found in their system.
The drivers’ details were published under the heading: “Do you know any of them? [Guess] how much alcohol at most they have drunk?”
The Quzhou Traffic Police Department in Zhejiang province has been surrounded by controversies after it published the report which mentions that 624 drunk drivers were caught out of which 25 were women, South China Morning Post reported citing Red Star News.
Public Reaction to the report
The report has sparked anger among local people and the apology for the same by the police department has brought the report into limelight. The apology was viewed by people nearly 10 million times on Douyin (TikTok, also known in China as Douyin) alone.”Don’t men have a gender?” a comment read.
“Why did they split the drunk drivers into men and women? Is it because people of different gender will be sober at different points when they are drunk?” another said.
“They haven’t apologised to those 25 women, but to the mass of users of the internet. Do you see any sincerity in their apology?” a person commented.
This is not the first time such an incident came to light. Earlier in 2020, Maoming police in southern China’s Guangdong province said on WeChat that they had caught 98 drunk drivers, including seven women, but only released photos and detailed information of the women involved.
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