Man arrested in China for sending meme deemed “offensive” to police

A Chinese man was detained for nine days after sending a meme to a chat group that was deemed “offensive to the police”. The incident went viral on Chinese social media.

The man, identified only by his surname Li, allegedly sent the meme on Chinese social media platform WeChat, in a group conversation complaining about Covid-19’s local prevention and control measures late last month, according to officials and media state-owned.

China maintains a “zero Covid” policy, which has resulted in authorities reimposing blockades and other emergency measures in recent weeks in an attempt to contain the spread of the virus.

Qingtongxia City Police in the Ningxia region posted a screenshot of Li’s text exchange on Chinese social media, but later removed the post.

The state-run newspaper The Paper published more details about the incident that caused consternation in China, with a related hashtag with 170 million views.

Many protested Li’s punishment, arguing that using an internet joke would hardly be a reason for police arrest.

According to The Paper, Li sent a meme showing a dog in a police hat, holding a police badge and pointing at the camera. It’s a common image that has been widely used online before, with different variations, sometimes including a cat or cartoon character in a police hat.

On Saturday night, local police received a tip from a member of the public, alleging that Li had uploaded an image “insulting the image of the police,” according to The Paper.

Police have launched an investigation into the chat group, which had more than 330 members, according to The Paper. After discovering that Li was “dissatisfied with the community’s prevention measures”, the police called him to the police station, where he was interrogated and ended up “confessing the illegal fact of insulting the police”.

Police said his actions constituted the offense of “provoking fights and causing trouble,” and gave him nine days of detention as punishment.

The newspaper praised the efforts of local authorities to contain the virus. Police are “at the forefront of epidemic prevention and control to build a safety barrier for people’s lives and health,” the article said.

“However, there are some people dissatisfied with the measures to prevent the epidemic and even openly insulting the police”, the text adds.

“For such illegal acts, the Qingtongxia Police Department always insists on the policy of ‘zero tolerance’ and resolutely punishes them in accordance with the law to defend the authority of law enforcement and the legal dignity of the police.”

China has some of the strictest Covid-19 measures in the world, including travel restrictions, instant locks and mass testing. This contrasts with other countries in Asia, which are learning to live with the virus after implementing mass vaccinations.

These measures, while widely popular within China, have also generated rare signs of public resistance in recent weeks as the number of virus cases soared.

Two residents were arrested in October for trying to climb over the fences of their gated community. And on social media, some residents have begun to complain about the cost of being locked up for long periods of time and the damage this has done to local economies.

(Translated text. Read the original in English here).

Reference: CNN Brasil

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