The New York Times - USA (2020-11-15)

16 N THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONALSUNDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2020

Lhamo, a Tibetan farmer in

southwestern China, lived her life

mostly outdoors and shared it on-

line, posting videos of herself

cooking, singing and picking

herbs in the mountains around

her village. By this fall, she had

about 200,000 followers, many of

whom praised her as cheerful and

hardworking.

Over 400 of them were watch-

ing one evening in mid-September

as Ms. Lhamo, 30, streamed a vid-

eo live from her kitchen on

Douyin, the Chinese version of the

TikTok app. Suddenly, a man

stormed in and Ms. Lhamo

screamed. Then the screen went

dark.

When Ms. Lhamo’s sister

Dolma arrived at the hospital a

few hours later, she found Ms.

Lhamo struggling to breathe, her

body covered with burns. The po-

lice in Jinchuan County, where she

lived, are investigating Ms.

Lhamo’s ex-husband on suspicion

that he doused her with gasoline

and set her on fire.

“She looked like a piece of char-

coal,” said Ms. Dolma, who, along

with her sister and many other Ti-

betans, goes by one name. “He

burned almost all her skin off.”

Ms. Lhamo died two weeks lat-

er.

Her case, one of several that

have gained national attention

this year, reflects the shortcom-

ings of China’s legal system in pro-

tecting women from domestic vio-

lence — even when they repeat-

edly seek help, as Ms. Lhamo did.

Public outrage has helped some

get justice, including a woman in

Henan Province who was denied a

divorce until she posted video evi-

dence of her abuse. But for many

women like Ms. Lhamo it comes

too late.

In July, a man in the eastern city

of Hangzhou was arrested on sus-

picion of murdering his wife after

her dismembered remains were

found in a communal septic tank.

Late last month, video footage

went viral that appeared to show a

man in Shanxi Province beating

his wife to death in front of by-

standers.

More than 900 women have

died at the hands of their hus-

bands or partners since China’s

law against domestic violence

was enacted in 2016, according to

Beijing Equality, a women’s rights

group.

The domestic violence law

promised police investigations

and easier access to restraining

orders, but enforcement is spotty

and punishments are light in a so-

ciety that stigmatizes divorce and

pressures victims of abuse to keep

silent. Activists say many police

officers are not properly trained to

handle domestic violence cases.

In the countryside, where Ms.

Lhamo was from, victims often

lack social support networks and

are less educated about their

rights.

Just one day after Ms. Lhamo’s

death, Xi Jinping, China’s top

leader, told a U.N. conference on

women that the “protection of

women’s rights and interests

must become a national commit-

ment.”

The Chinese internet seized on

the speech. And soon, people were

calling for stronger enforcement

of the domestic violence law using

the hashtag #LhamoAct. Within a

day, the hashtag had been cen-

sored on Weibo, one of China’s

most popular social media plat-

forms. Other hashtags con-

demned the failure of the police to

prevent Ms. Lhamo’s murder, in-

cluding #StopNotActing and

#PunishNotActing.

Wan Miaoyan, a women’s rights

lawyer in Chengdu, the capital of

Sichuan Province, said she hoped

the backlash from Ms. Lhamo’s

case would result in better en-

forcement of the law.

“But why does it take a tragedy

and a victim to sacrifice herself in

such a bloody way before we make

progress on law enforcement?”

she said.

Ms. Lhamo was from a remote

village in the region of Aba, called

Ngaba by Tibetans. Born into pov-

erty, she made a living picking

herbs in the mountains. As a child,

she was kind and optimistic, her

sister said. When Ms. Lhamo was

18, she met a man named Tang Lu

from a nearby village. Before long

they were married, and Ms.

Lhamo moved in with his family

and gave birth to two boys, who

are now 3 and 12.

Ms. Dolma said she had seen

bruises on her sister’s face and

body many times over the years.

Ms. Lhamo often fled to their fa-

ther’s house to recover from her

injuries, which Ms. Dolma said in-

cluded a dislocated elbow.

Mr. Tang did not respond to

multiple messages on his Douyin

account asking for comment. Ms.

Dolma said she did not have

phone numbers for him or his rela-

tives.

Ms. Lhamo divorced Mr. Tang

in March. But he immediately

pushed her to remarry, Ms. Dolma

said, threatening to kill their chil-

dren if she refused. Ms. Lhamo

called the police twice but they ig-

nored her pleas for help, her sister

said. The couple remarried.

Two weeks later, when Ms.

Lhamo went to the police again af-

ter Mr. Tang tried to hurt her and

Ms. Dolma, the authorities said

that since she had chosen to re-

marry him, “this is your personal

family matter.” The officer said

there was nothing they could do,

according to Ms. Dolma.

The Jinchuan County police de-

partment did not respond to a re-

quest for comment.

In May, Ms. Dolma said, Mr.

Tang tried to choke Ms. Lhamo

and threatened her with a knife.

She sought help from the local

chapter of the All-China Women’s

Federation, the government

agency in charge of protecting

women’s rights. Ms. Dolma said

her sister cried later as she re-

counted when an official dis-

missed her injuries, saying other

women were worse off.

An employee at the Jinchuan

County Women’s Federation con-

firmed that Ms. Lhamo had vis-

ited the office and said there was

an investigation underway.

Ms. Lhamo refused to give up,

Ms. Dolma said. She filed for di-

vorce again and hid with relatives

as she waited for court approval.

In early June, Mr. Tang went

looking for Ms. Lhamo at Ms. Dol-

ma’s house. When Ms. Dolma

wouldn’t tell him where her sister

was, he hit her in the left eye. Ms.

Dolma was hospitalized for al-

most two weeks for bone frac-

tures, according to a copy of the

medical report viewed by The

New York Times. She said she re-

ported the incident to the police

but they only briefly questioned

Mr. Tang and let him go.

A court granted the couple’s

second divorce a few weeks later,

awarding Mr. Tang full custody of

their two sons. Ms. Lhamo spent

most of the summer deep in the

mountains picking herbs. On Sept.

12, two days before the attack that

would kill her, she posted a video

saying she was coming home.

Mr. Tang, who was also severely

burned, is being investigated on

suspicion of homicide. That is cold

comfort for Ms. Dolma.

“It’s too late to talk about these

things now,” she said. “If they had

taken it seriously at that time and

disciplined or punished him, we

wouldn’t be in this situation to-

day.”

Fatal Domestic Attack

Livestreamed in China

Farmer’s Murder Sparks Public Outrage

By ELSIE CHEN

Lhamo, top center, with her

sister, Dolma, and their father,

Sonam Kyab. Dolma scattered

her sister’s ashes in a river near

to where Lhamo lived, above.

PHOTOGRAPHS VIA DOLMA

ROME — The post on the Rome
mayor’s Facebook page was tri-
umphant: The police had tracked
down a man “once considered un-
catchable,” she said in announcing
that after a yearlong investiga-
tion, the authorities had discov-
ered the real identity of the elusive
graffiti painter known only as
Geco.
For years, Geco’s moniker in
blocky letters has marked count-
less Roman subway stations and
bridges, abandoned buildings and
schools, parks and galleries.
Stickers with his name have been
affixed to innumerable street
signs, lamp posts and news
stands.
“He has soiled hundreds of
walls and buildings in Rome and
other European cities, which had
to be cleaned using public funds,”
the mayor, Virginia Raggi, wrote
on social media. She posted a
photo of “hundreds of spray paint
cans, thousands of stickers,” and
other tricks of the trade that she
said investigators had confiscated
from the apartment of Rome’s
most-wanted graffiti painter.
The city authorities did not dis-
close his real name. But Italian
news outlets identified him, with-
out saying how they had obtained
his name. And they gave few per-
sonal details about the man, who
is thought to be in his late 20s and
originally from Rome. His lawyer
would not confirm his real name.
Geco is not nearly as well-
known as Banksy, the world’s
most famous artist-provocateur,
whose real identity remains a se-
cret. But he had made a name for
himself in Rome, where his tags
seemed to be everywhere, while
his true identity was a secret.
Paulo von Vacano, a publisher
and expert in contemporary ur-
ban art, said tagging “is some-
thing brutal, archaic,” adding:
“You tag your name to show that
you are king of the street. In the
context of what he did, he did it
very well.”
Geco fueled his fame by tagging
a perilously tall railway tower and
by climbing to the roof of a munici-
pal food market to leave an unusu-
ally verbose message: “Geco ti
mette le ali,” or ‘Geco gives you
wings.”
While most Romans would con-
cur that the Italian capital could
use a good cleanup, including its
graffiti, many grumbled that the
city — and the mayor — had much
bigger problems to contend with,
from the ever-present scourge of
potholes to infrequent garbage
collection, not to mention the eco-
nomic toll of the coronavirus pan-
demic.
“A writer treated like a mafio-
so,” a lawmaker for the center-left
Democratic Party, Matteo Orfini,
wrote on Twitter. “Reading and in-
terpreting a city only through the
lens of decorum and security can’t
be the solution. In fact, it’s a (not
small) part of the problem.”
At least one “Free Geco” tag ap-
peared on a city wall. But actually,
he has not been arrested.
Geco’s lawyer, Domenico
Melillo, himself a graffiti writer
turned street artist known as
Frode, said the investigation was
still in a preliminary phase and
that his client had not been for-
mally charged.
“Everything has to be verified,”
he said.
If Geco is charged with defacing
public or private property and
found to be a repeat offender, he
could face up to two years in pris-

on and fines.

But Mr. Melillo dismissed the

mayor’s Facebook post as little

more than political propaganda

that violated his client’s right to

secrecy during the preliminary in-

vestigation. Mayors have under-

stood that cracking down on graf-

fiti has become a way to forge a po-

litical consensus, he said.

“They want to show that they’re

doing something,” he said.

Through his lawyer, Geco de-

clined to be interviewed.

The Geco sting was carried out

by an 18-month-old environmen-

tal police task force that works di-

rectly for the mayor’s office. It

acted on numerous formal com-

plaints on the part of Ms. Raggi as

well as the city’s infrastructure

commissioner and an association

for one of Rome’s biggest parks.

They claimed damage to city

property as well as various other

buildings and green spaces.

It was rumored that Geco had

landed in the cross hairs of the

mayor because he had mistakenly

tagged what he thought was an

abandoned building that turned

out to be a Secret Service hide-out.

The mayor’s office said Geco

had already operated in different

European countries, above all

Portugal, where he had caused

thousands of euros in damages in

Lisbon.

Some might argue that Rome

had expanded its urban art scene

thanks to his tags. When it comes

to graffiti, there has always been a

fine line between vandalism and

creative genius, said Mr. von Va-

cano, the urban art expert.

Many celebrated contemporary

artists, including Jean-Michel

Basquiat and Keith Haring, began

their careers as taggers. And

countless street painters have

achieved fame, and market value,

from Banksy to Blu, another cele-

brated — and anonymous — Ital-

ian artist.

Geco has never strayed from

his roots as a tagger. In an inter-

view on a Portuguese website, he

defined himself as a high-volume

bomber who wanted to “spread

my name more than having a su-

per-developed aesthetic.” He said

his top priority was quantity, add-

ing, “Quality comes later.”

“He is pure,” Mr. von Vacano

said. “He is everywhere, a free

spirit, and like all street artists of

his kind, he works in lawlessness.

He does not interact with the art

system.”

While Ms. Raggi was celebrat-

ing the supposed downfall of one

street painter, another was being

celebrated at Rome’s municipal

Gallery of Modern Art, with a ret-

rospective of the American Shep-

ard Fairey. The show, “3 decades

of dissent” is now closed because

of the coronavirus.

And for a campaign launched

last November to teach Roman

schoolchildren to keep their city

clean, Ms. Raggi hired a well

known graphic artist to draw her

as a manga comic figure. (In one,

the mayor is shown frowning

upon a graffiti writer.)

Not long after, the artist, Mario

Improta, known as Marione, was

fired from the campaign after he

posted a vignette on social media

depicting the European Union as

the Nazi concentration camp

Auschwitz.

“It’s clear that not everyone

likes graffiti and it’s legitimate

that someone can be annoyed that

someone has tagged his house.

But it’s a leap to think of a writer

as a criminal,” said Andrea Cegna,

the author of a book on graffiti.

To praise the Banksys or the

Harings, he said, “you have to ac-

cept the contradictory part, the il-

legal part.”

“Because as is true of every-

thing that is aesthetic, everything

that has to do with taste,” Mr.

Cegna added. “There is no right or

wrong.”

Anonymous Graffiti Artist Tracked Down in Rome

RICCARDO ANTIMIANI/EPA, VIA SHUTTERSTOCK

Graffiti in Rome that reads “Geco gives you wings,” above. Rome’s mayor, Virginia Raggi, top,

wrote on social media that the artist “has soiled hundreds of walls and buildings in Rome.”

MARILLA SICILIA/MONDADORI PORTFOLIO, VIA GETTY IMAGES

By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO

A moniker that

marked countless

walls in Europe.

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