Seldom has the Chinese blogosphere scrutinized any two-hour period as closely as 8 to 10 p.m. on April 14, 2016. It was in those two hours that a group of debt collectors is alleged to have detained and tormented 22-year-old Yu Huan and his mother, an ordeal which Yu responded to by stabbing one of them to death.

Yu’s sentencing to life in prison a month ago attracted little attention until an explosive report on the case by a Chinese newspaper on Thursday. The Southern Weekly’s investigation has sparked a campaign to pardon Yu, led to claims of police incompetence and focused attention on the shady world of black market lending in China.

An unpaid debt of Su Yinxia, mother of the convicted, was what led to this tragedy. To fund her small steel trading business in Liaocheng, Shandong Province, Su borrowed 1,350,000 yuan (196,329 US dollars) from a loan shark, with interest agreed at 10 percent a month. After struggling to repay 1,840,000 yuan of principal plus interest, she still ended up owing 170,000 yuan in April of last year to her creditor, who then sent a group of debt collectors to get the money back, according to the Southern Daily.‍

On April 14, it is alleged that 11 men broke into Su’s company, blocked entry to the premises and restrained Su and Yu there.

Citing witness statements given at the trial, the Southern Daily reported that the men verbally abused their prisoners, forced them to watch pornography, removed Yu’s shoe to shove it in Su’s mouth and beat him when he resisted. The alleged head of the group, Du Zhihao, even exposed himself in Su’s face, the paper said.

Police were called to the scene, but surveillance video shows them leaving the room after just four minutes. A witness told the court that the police said, “It’s okay to ask for your money back, but don’t beat anyone.”

Shortly after the police had left, Yu grabbed a knife and stabbed four of the men, including Du, who died from his injuries. 

“[Yu] told me that anyone with a sound mind would have fought after seeing his mother insulted like that… The maltreatment escalated after the police came and left. He had every reason to believe that his life was threatened under the circumstances,” Tian Ming, one of Yu’s defense lawyers told thepaper.cn. 

Yu’s lawyers argued for an “excessive defense” verdict which would have featured a much lighter sentence than the “intentional injury” charge for which Yu was convicted. However, the Liaocheng Court judged that Yu and his mother were not in a life-threatening situation, given that the men did not possess any tools that could have been used as weapons and that the police had been dispatched.

Netizens bombarded the Weibo account of Liaocheng Court with tens of thousands of comments crying injustice. On Saturday night, the local police department posted a comment on Weibo saying “pay to emotion what belongs to emotion – and to law what belongs to law: That is the right thing to do,” an apparent justification of Yu’s sentencing that was met with another barrage of angry criticism.

Stories about Yu’s case have received millions of shares and comments online, with both ordinary members of the public and internet celebrities overwhelmingly siding with Yu, applauding the young man’s defense of his mother.

A Beijingnews commentary attacked the court’s decision to throw out the self-defense argument, contending that illegal detention already constituted “immediate and direct threat” under the law.

A  People’s Daily commentary said of the case on Saturday, “The law is not just about rules, but also about the values behind the rules. It should answer to what people want in their hearts and contribute to social morals.” 

A report by financial media Yibencaijing on Sunday directed people’s attention to the issue of usurious debts, which are particularly common in smaller Chinese cities in recent years since the Chinese economy slows down. It said collection of debts is usually contracted to local gangs. According to Yibencaijing, the collectors gather in online forums discussing tactics to extract money from their targets, while the indebted do likewise, discussing tactics to evade the collectors. “It is an endless fight until death,” the report concluded.

On Sunday, China’s Supreme People's Procuratorate announced that it has sent its own investigators to Shandong to review the case and determine whether the police acted negligently. On the same day, the Shandong Supreme Court said that it was processing an appeal by Yu’s lawyers.