China sends woman to labor camp over anti-Japanese Tweet

Wed, 17 Nov 2010

Beijing - A Chinese woman began a one-year sentence at a labor camp Wednesday after authorities accused her of "disturbing social order" by posting a Twitter message that urged people to attack Japanese property, her fiance said.

Police transferred Cheng Jianping Tuesday night to the Shibalihe Women's Re-Eduation Through Labor Center in the central city of Zhengzhou in Henan province after a local judicial committee passed the sentence, Hua Chunhui said.

Cheng, who used her online name Wang Yi, was arrested after she added her comment to a message from Hua that she reposted on Twitter on October 17.

"Angry youth! Charge!" she wrote next to Hua's message, in which he said the best way to enliven anti-Japanese protests would be to "fly immediately to Shanghai and smash the Japanese pavilion at the World Expo."

"It was kind of satirical," Hua said of Cheng's comment, adding that she was sent to the labor camp "only because she put five characters before my Tweet."

Arresting Cheng solely for exercising her right to free speech was "against the constitution" of China, he said.

Sentences to labor camps are "administrative" and are normally passed by a local judicial committee without any court hearing. They are often used to silence local dissidents, rights activists and religious activists as well as for minor criminals.

Cheng was held under house arrest in Changyuan county in Henan's Xinxiang city until she was transferred to the labor camp.

"The (re-education) committee just decided it; she had no chance to defend herself," Hua said of the sentencing.

Hua said he had asked lawyers to prepare an administrative appeal against Cheng's sentence.

Twitter is blocked by China's "Great Firewall" of government internet controls, but thousands of activists use proxy servers or software to access the website daily.

After several smaller anti-Japanese protests in September, thousands of students joined large protests in Zhengzhou and at least four other Chinese cities over the weekend of October 18-19.

They were held after Japan arrested a Chinese fishing boat captain in September after his boat allegedly collided with Japanese Coast Guard vessels in disputed waters in the East China Sea, sparking a diplomatic dispute.

The ruling Communist Party allowed the heavily policed earlier demonstrations but later warned people not to organize more anti-Japanese protests.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/353899,labour-camp-anti-japanese-tweet.html.