China: Netizen sentenced to one year labour education for mocking at leader

According to local media report [zh], a Chongqing city resident Fang Hung was sentenced to labour education camp in April 2011 for posting a microblog that mocked at the city's party leader Bo Xilai, the son of a Chinese Communist Party revolutionary elder Bo Yibo.

The mircoblog said:

勃起来窝了一驼屎,叫王立军吃,王立军把这驼屎端给检察院吃,检察院端给法院吃,法院端给李庄律师吃,李庄说,这驼屎太臭了,谁窝的,谁自己吃。

Mr erected shit some stool and asked Wang Lijun to eat. Wang Lijun handed over the stool to the Prosecutor, the Prosecutor handed over to the court and the court handed over to Lawyer Li Zhuang. Li zhuang said, this stool is too stinky, who has made the shit, eats it himself.

The Chinese pronunciation of Bo XiLai is similar to erection (bo-zi-lai) while Wang Lijun is the deputy mayor of Chongqing city.

The microblog is a satirical story about Bo Xilai's crude campaign against corruption in Chongqing city and his scapegoat lawyer Li Zhuang, who was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment in 2010 for “inciting a client to fake testimony” when he was acting as a defending lawyer for a convicted gangster from Chongqing back in 2009. The public in general believes that Li's arrest and conviction was a direct order from Bo Xilai and that Li was being framed.

In April 2011, Li faced another charge of similar nature – that he was involved in fraud and enticed a witness in Shanghai back in 2008 to fabricate evidence. Before the trial several law professors spoke publicly that were Mr. Li convicted, it would be impossible for other lawyers to defend their clients. Eventually the Chongqing Prosecutor dropped the charge.

The above mentioned microblog was posted by Fang Hung, a 49-year-old retired civil servant in Chongqing on April 21, 2011 when Li Zhuang's second charge was still on trial. Chongqing police demanded Fang to delete his post on the next day and detained him in the police station. On April 24, the police and labour education committee decided to sentence him to one year labour education under the charge of “fabricating fact and disrupting the social order”. By the time Fang's son received the labour education notice on April 25 and it was already too late for him to hire a lawyer and appeal for the decision. According to the police regulation, the appeal has to be filed within 48 hours upon the labour education document was released. Below is a copy of the police document:

(P.S The Thumbnail is Bo Xilai's picture.)

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    […] China: Netizen sentenced to one year labour education for mocking … In April 2011, Li faced another charge of similar nature – that he was involved in fraud and enticed a witness in Shanghai back in 2008 to fabricate evidence. Before the trial several law professors spoke publicly that […]

  • […] Another Chinese microblogger gets a year in a work camp. The Arab Spring-inspired crackdown of social media users in China continues apace with the sentencing of Fang Hung. Fang's crime? Mocking "the son of a Chinese Communist Party revolutionary elder." This is not the first time a satirical Chinese microblogger has gotten a year in the gulag. Last year Cheng Jianping began serving a year only days before she was to have been married. […]

  • […] Another Chinese microblogger gets a year in a work camp. The Arab Spring-inspired crackdown of social media users in China continues apace with the sentencing of Fang Hung. Fang's crime? Mocking "the son of a Chinese Communist Party revolutionary elder." This is not the first time a satirical Chinese microblogger has gotten a year in the gulag. Last year Cheng Jianping began serving a year only days before she was to have been married. […]

  • […] Another Chinese microblogger gets a year in a work camp. The Arab Spring-inspired crackdown of social media users in China continues apace with the sentencing of Fang Hung. Fang's crime? Mocking "the son of a Chinese Communist Party revolutionary elder." This is not the first time a satirical Chinese microblogger has gotten a year in the gulag. Last year Cheng Jianping began serving a year only days before she was to have been married. […]

  • […] Another Chinese microblogger gets a year in a work camp. The Arab Spring-inspired crackdown of social media users in China continues apace with the sentencing of Fang Hung. Fang's crime? Mocking "the son of a Chinese Communist Party revolutionary elder." This is not the first time a satirical Chinese microblogger has gotten a year in the gulag. Last year Cheng Jianping began serving a year only days before she was to have been married. […]

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