In another post, he later sought to revise his remark to: “Raping ordinary women is more harmful than raping escort girls in bars and nightclubs, and prostitutes.”

The comments were soon spotted by bloggers and internet users. Many of them said Yi's posts not only showed explicit support of the defendant, but also legal discrimination towards sex workers. Yi's Weibo page quickly drew tens of thousands of comments questioning his rationale.

“Every woman enjoys an equal right to safeguard herself from sex exploitation. Since when do the rights come with different rankings?” said one blogger.

Even the defendant's lawyer, Tian Canjun, was prompted to issue a public letter, criticising the law professor's remark as discrimination against sex workers.

“When people are subject to acts that seriously violate laws, [we] ought not to judge its social harmfulness based on the victims’ reputation, wealth and especially occupation,” Tian wrote on his microblog.

Apparently overwhelmed by the immense criticism, Yi on the same day wrote on his blog: “Echoing the ignorant public’s voice is much easier than speaking the truth” and “[I] do not expect the internet to be a platform of rational dialogue”.

On Wednesday, Yi deleted all posts related to this topic on his microblog account.