Cheng Jianping

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cheng Jianping (Chinese: 程建萍; Pinyin: Chéng Jiànpíng), also known as Wang Yi (Chinese: 王 译), born in 1964, is a Chinese political dissident and human rights activist . In November 2010, she was sentenced to one year of re-education through work after posting a comment on her Twitter account. She wrote: "Attack, angry youth!"

Comment on Twitter

The Twitter post was made while China and Japan were in a diplomatic dispute over a group of islands in the East China Sea called Senkaku Islands (Diaoyu in Chinese or Senkaku in Japanese). Chinese protesters had demonstrated against Japan by boycotting Japanese products and attacking Japanese companies to show their support for the Chinese government.

Cheng's post was actually a “retweet” of a publication by her fiancé Hua Chunhui, who originally wrote: “Anti-Japanese demonstrations, Japanese products smashed, all of this was done years ago by Guo Quan . So this is not a new trick. If you really want to shift up a gear, you would immediately fly to Shanghai to smash the Japanese exhibition pavilion ”.

Cheng then added her three-word comment, which both she and her fiancé described as a sarcastic satire, a joke intended to criticize the protesters.

arrest

The comments made on October 17th, 2010 were considered a "disturbance of public order" by the Chinese government. The government interpreted this as an attempt to incite protesters against Japan to attack the Japanese booth at Expo 2010 in Shanghai.

Hua and Cheng were due to get married on October 27, but Cheng disappeared from Wuxi City, southeast China, before the ceremony . During the week of November 17th, it was found that she had been arrested by the police. Her fiancé was also arrested on October 27th and released five days later.

The court sentenced Cheng to one year of re-education through labor at Shibalihe Women's Forced Labor Camp in Zhengzhou City , Henan Province on November 12th .

Imprisonment

To protest her sentencing, Cheng went on a hunger strike after she was arrested and asked to be moved closer to her hometown. Her lawyer Lan Zhixue and her fiancé appealed the verdict. (Under the Chinese legal system, the police can send people to labor camps for up to four years without a trial. Few appeals are successful.)

International reactions

The Chinese government's response drew attention to the risks of using Twitter for controversial political issues, human rights criticism and overt technology groups. Commenting on the verdict, Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International's Asia Pacific Director, said, “Someone was sentenced to a year in labor camp without a trial simply because that person shared another person's apparently satirical comment on Twitter the extent of China's suppression of freedom of expression on the Internet ”. Amnesty International commented: "Cheng may be the first Chinese citizen to become a prisoner of conscience on the basis of a single tweet." Dick Costolo , Managing Director of Twitter, posted on his Twitter account: "Dear Chinese government, years imprisonment only, because you post a sarcastic tweet, it is neither the way forward nor the future of your great people ”.

Twitter is currently banned in China, yet many people bypass and use internet controls.

Support other activists

Amnesty International said that Cheng participated in low-level online activism, including sending online messages in support of detained Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo . According to her fiancé, Cheng's previous activism consisted of signing petitions, including calling for Liu Xiaobo to be released.

Cheng was arrested by police in August 2010 and detained five days after she announced her support for Liu Xianbin . Liu Xianbin is a longtime democracy activist from the protests that preceded the Tian'anmen massacre in 1989. Liu Xianbin was arrested and detained in 2010 for criticizing the Chinese Communist Party and suspected of inciting the overthrow of state power.

Cheng also supported Zhao Lianhai , a former food quality assurance employee. He stood up for the parents whose children were harmed during the 2008 Chinese milk scandal .

Chinese human rights defenders described Cheng as an active participant in Weiguan tactics, which draw attention to government abuses by naming officials and pressuring them through protests and phone calls.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tania Branigan, China jails Twitter woman for tweet about anti-Japanese protests , World News, theguardian.co.uk, January 10, 2012, accessed November 18, 2016
  2. ↑ Sella Oneko, Chinese woman sent to labor camp for provocative Twitter message New Statesman, November 10, 2010 accessed on 18 November 2016
  3. ↑ a b Chinese woman sentenced to a year in labor camp over tweet , Amnesty International, November 17, 2010, accessed November 18, 2016
  4. ↑ a b c d Andrew Jacobs, Chinese Woman Imprisoned for Twitter Message , The New York Times, November 18, 2010, accessed November 18, 2016
  5. ↑ a b c Damian Grammaticas, Chinese woman jailed over Twitter post , BBC News Bejing, bbc.com, November 18, 2010, accessed November 18, 2016
  6. ↑ Stan Schroeder, Chinese Woman Sentenced to Labor Camp Over Tweet, Mashable Social Media , November 18, 2010, accessed November 18, 2016
  7. ^ Adam Hartley, Dissident Chinese Twitterer gets one year hard labor , techradar.com, November 19, 2010, accessed November 18, 2016
  8. ↑ Jonathan Shieber, A Joke on Twitter, A Year in Labor Camp? , China Real Time Report, The Wall Street Journal, blogs.wsj.com, November 19, 2010, accessed November 18, 2016
  9. ↑ Metrowebukmetro, Twitter CEO attacks China for detaining tweet woman , Metro.co.uk, November 19, 2010, accessed November 18, 2016
  10. ↑ Krassimira Twigg, Twitterers defy China's firewall , BBC News, Asia-Pacific, June 10, 2009, accessed November 18, 2016
  11. ↑ Aliyah Shahid, Chinese woman, Cheng Jianping, sentenced to a year in labor camp over Twitter post , New York: NY Daily News, November 18, 2010, accessed November 18, 2016
personal data
SURNAME Cheng Jianping
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wang Yi; 程建萍; Chéng, Jiànpíng
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Chinese political dissident and human rights activist
DATE OF BIRTH 1964