Tweet Sends Chinese Woman To Labor Camp

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Cheng Jianping probably didn’t think much about retweeting her fiance’s statement. Now that tweet is now going to cost her a year in a labor camp “for disrupting social order.”

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The 46-year-old Chinese woman, who goes by the twitter handle wangyi09, retweeted her fiance’s statement about how Chinese anti-Japanese protesters should smash the Japanese Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo, adding the characters for “charge, angry youth.” The tweet referred to the diplomatic issues between the Chinese and Japanese governments over some islands in the East China Sea. The statement referred to a recent protest, where young citizens had smashed Japanese products.

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Her fiance was detained as well on the day they were supposed to be married, but released five days later with no legal repercussions, according to CNN. He claims he hasn’t seen Chen since. Twitter is banned in China, but tech-savvy citizens have found their way around governmental controls. Her lawyer Lan Zhixue claims the message was intended to mock the protesters for their futile efforts, not incite riot. “”This is ridiculous and a typical case of censorship jail,” he said. “People should not be put in jail due to their sarcastic words.” There is further concern because Chen suffers from high blood pressure, so Lan is petitioning for her to have her re-education through labor take place at home instead of the Henan Province labor camp.

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The BBC reports that the case might be more than the posted phrase. Chen is a local human rights activist who follows China’s jailed Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo on Twitter.

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