A Chinese teenager tied her mother to a chair for a week and starved her to death as revenge for sending her to a brutal “boot camp” to curb her internet addiction.
The 16-year-old was beaten and mistreated at the military-style camp designed to treat teenagers with behavioural problems or who are too dependent on technology, according to Chinese news site The Paper.
The girl reportedly tortured her mother as pay back for sending her to the brutal camp, sending photos and videos to her aunty and demanding a ransom to pay for her to study in another city.
By the time she received the money she realised her mother was already dying and called an ambulance, but it was too late to save her.
The girl had previously stabbed her father in an argument when she dropped out of school.
He was hospitalised and she was sent to the boot camp, which claimed to have cured 7000 children of internet addiction in two decades.
In a blog post the girl claimed trainers humiliated students and beat them for no reason.
“When you mentioned it to your relatives, they all said: ‘Isn’t it all in the past? We love you, you should forget all those things,'” she wrote.
“I am angry. People point at my nose and call me unfilial and worse than a beast.”
“It was them who sent me there. It was them who cursed me and beat me, it was them who sabotaged my life and libelled my character; but it was also them who said they loved me. My friends here, if it were you, what would you do?”
There are 250 similar camps across China and many are poorly regulated.
Other students wrote to The Paper to report similar experiences after reading the girl’s story.
“When the toilets clogged up, students were asked to empty the toilets with their hands,” one former student said, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
“You get beaten up in the toilet, and get beaten up again if you dare say no. You get beaten up if you are found to be in a relationship.”
The girl has been charged with manslaughter.