China jails blogger for saying Galwan casualties higher
A popular Chinese blogger, detained earlier this year for his remarks on People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers killed in clashes with Indian troops at Galwan Valley last June, has been sentenced to eight months in jail, the state-run tabloid Global Times reported.
Qiu Ziming, 38, an internet celebrity who has over 2.5 million followers on microblogging site Weibo, has been charged with “slandering martyrs and heroes”, and is the first person to be jailed under China’s amended criminal laws that deal with the defamation of martyrs.
Qiu wrote the post in February, months after the clashes that left 20 Indian soldiers and, according to China, four of its soldiers, dead. According to reports, Qiu is said to have suggested that the PLA officer who survived, did so because he was a senior. Further, according to the reports, Qiu suggested that more PLA soldiers could have died in the clash.
“Qiu, known as ‘Labixiaoqiu’ online, was also ordered to publicly apologise through major domestic portals and the national media within 10 days to eliminate the negative impact, a court in Nanjing, eastern China’s Jiangsu province ruled,” Global Times reported.
On March 1, Qiu made an open apology for his “misbehaviour” during a prime-time national news broadcast on China’s state broadcaster CCTV. “I feel extremely ashamed of myself, and I’m very sorry,” Qiu said, adding: “My behaviour was an annihilation of conscience”.
The amended laws carry a maximum sentence of three years in jail, but Qiu got a lighter punishment because, according to the court, he had truthfully confessed to his crime, entered a guilty plea, and said in court that he would never repeat his crime.
Qiu commented on the four PLA soldiers the day China released the casualty figures for the first time since the June 16, 2020 clash. “He was detained a day later for stirring up trouble that brought about a severe negative social impact. Qiu’s Weibo account was also suspended,” the report said.
China has been highly sensitive about any comment perceived to be slanderous about its military casualties in the Galwan Valley clash. At least eight people have so far been arrested, detained or have had proceedings initiated against them for insulting the “PLA heroes and martyrs” online.
Last week, a permanent resident of the US, Wang Jingyu, 19, wanted by China under similar charges, was freed by Dubai and boarded a flight to Turkey after spending weeks in detention. Beijing, according to the Associated Press, had sought Wang’s custody over his comments on the deadly clash between Indian and Chinese soldiers.
Wang, a resident of Chongqing city in south-west China, publicly questioned on social media why the Chinese government waited six months to release the information about PLA casualty figures, sparking a harassment campaign that saw him flee to Istanbul, the AP report said.