By Pierrick Yvon
German courts have tried a group of mostly Chinese men accused of running a sex abuse ring that drugged victims and which members called the “Driving School for Experts”.
Their dark secret, now coming to light in a series of trials, was that in their Telegram chat group, a “car ride” was code for a rape, and “dead pigs” referred to their victims, usually very sedated women.
The cases have evoked that of Gisele Pelicot, the French woman who waived her right to anonymity during the 2024 trial of her ex-husband and dozens of strangers who raped her while she was unconscious.
The German hearings have attracted less media attention, but have often attracted courtroom audiences of mostly Chinese women who have followed the hearings closely.
A young woman recently attended the trial in Berlin of Shao Zhiting, a doctor accused of sexually assaulting and giving advice to other men on how to soothe their mostly Chinese victims.
“I just want to know what happened,” the woman told AFP, asking to use the pseudonym Wang Ming.
“I feel like that could have been me,” added the woman in her late 20s, who has lived in Germany for five years.
She has traveled to Berlin from Hamburg three times to watch the trial of Shao, a small man in his 30s with glasses, a buzzer and a surgical mask, who has appeared impatient in the courtroom.
Shao is accused of advising the other men on how to take drugs such as triazolam, a sedative mainly used to treat insomnia.
Wang said she attended the trial out of curiosity about the judicial process, but also “to show solidarity for other women”.
“Being there for them is the only thing I could do,” she said.
‘Contempt of humanity’
In all, eight men – all but one Chinese – have been implicated in the “Driving School” ring, called “Fahrschule fuer Experten” in German.
According to the prosecution, Shao’s advice directly helped the group’s leader, Zhang Dapeng, to rape a woman in January 2024.
A Frankfurt court in February sentenced Zhang to 14 years in prison for seven counts of rape and four attempted murders.
See also: UK court sentences Chinese student to life in ‘rape campaign’
Another member of the group, a 28-year-old Chinese robotics master’s student named only as J. Zhongyi, was sentenced to 11 years and three months in prison for drugging and repeatedly raping his girlfriend and filming the abuse.
“The goal in each case was to so much sedate the victim that she did not show any defensive reaction even when she was in severe pain,” the court found in J. Zhongyi’s trial.
Judge Markus Koppenleitner said the crimes had shown “contempt for humanity and for women on a truly monstrous scale”.
The cases have generated considerable interest among the Chinese community in Germany.
In China, many women are still reluctant to file allegations of harassment, and it is rare for cases to go to court in a legal system that places a heavy burden on the plaintiff.
Wang said the Berlin court’s 30 seats reserved for the public were “95 percent” occupied by Chinese women, with others waiting on the steps.
Some of them had formed a support group that discusses the procedures, she said.
“It’s like a study group,” Wang said. “Some people maybe studied law or medicine. Some understood this part, some understood that part better. It’s like putting a puzzle together.”
“Ideas of Male Supremacy”
Another trial observer who asked to be identified only by her surname, Zhang, told AFP the case was revealing China as a “patriarchal society” where “traditional ideas of male superiority and preferences for boys have remained very strong”.
China’s government has rigorously enforced its one-child policy for a long time. It ended in 2016, but its effects persist, including a gender imbalance caused by many families’ preference for male offspring.
“Women became a scarce resource” and were often “regarded as consumer goods — something to be valued, chosen and used,” said Zhang, a freelance artist in her forties.
Wang said of the coroner’s judgment that she saw “no sign of remorse, such as remorse towards the victims”.
“I’m disappointed, obviously,” she added, “but I’m not surprised.”
