rat tied up China
You dirty rat: A picture posted on Weibo shows a rodent that had been tied up, with a little sign explaining it had been caught stealing rice at a convenience store Weibo

Photos have emerged which appears to show a rat that has been tied up and "shamed" for stealing rice from a shop in China.

The images, which were posted onto Weibo, China's version of Twitter, reportedly shows the rodent with its hand and feet tied in the Lianping County of Heyuan city in southern China's Guangdong Province.

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The rat is seen with a yellow sign around its neck reading: "Is this the best you could do? Even if you beat me to death, I would not admit that the rice at your home had been stolen by me."

In a second pic, the rat can be seen with a second sign reading: "I dare not do it again!", reported the Daily Mail.

The user of the Weibo account which uploaded the pics, Jiu lian shan she zhang, said the rat was caught by staff at a shop owned by his friend.

He said: "Some people pitied the rat, some people hated the rat, and some people found it to be funny.

"I pity the rat. It's just a small animal. It would almost certainly die being treated like this."

It is not known if the rat survived the incident. The shop owner, Lai Tiancai, dismissed the incident as "small" and added "It was just a rat".

rat tied up China
Another sign on the rat reads: 'I promise not to do it again' Weibo
China