School teacher executed in China for raping 26 girls

A primary school teacher in China's Gansu province has been executed for the rape and sexual abuse of 26 minor girls.
Li Jishun, a former primary school teacher, was put to death yesterday by the Intermediate People's Court of Tianshui City after the Supreme People's Court (SPC) here approved the death penalty.
Li was found by the court to have raped or sexually abused 26 girls aged from 4 to 11 when he was a teacher from 2011 to 2012.
He took advantage of those who were both childish and timid and committed the acts in dormitories or classrooms, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Considering the harm Li caused to the girls concerned and the extremely negative social impact, Li was given the heaviest punishment, said a judge from the SPC.
The SPC also published the details of four other cases involving sexual abuse of minors.
In one case, a man raped five girls in a school dormitory. He was given a death sentence but with a two-year reprieve.
The SPC said child sexual abuse cases are on the rise in recent years, with 7,145 such cases being handled by courts across the country from 2012 to 2014.