China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) on Wednesday confirmed that Taiwanese writer Liao Meng-yen (廖孟彥) had been arrested in China for producing obscene content, but did not confirm reports that he had been sentenced to 12 years in prison.
The day before, the Straits Exchange Foundation said that the writer known as Roson (羅森) had lost contact with his family for more than a year.
The family contacted the foundation for assistance last week, which at their request vowed to contact China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait regarding the case, it said.
Photo: Reuters
Out of respect for Liao’s privacy, the foundation did not release further details in accordance with his family’s wishes.
On Dec. 1, a post on Professional Technology Temple (PTT) claimed that Liao had been sentenced to 12 years in prison, citing a post from a Chinese fan on Nov. 30.
Earlier this year on Feb. 7, the Chinese state-owned Xinhua news agency reported that Chinese police arrested a man surnamed Liao for “propagating obscene messages in the guise of fantasy novels.”
At a regular news conference in Beijing, TAO spokesperson Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Wednesday confirmed that “relevant departments” were handing the case.
Liao is suspected of “producing, selling or disseminating obscene articles for profit,” and is being handled according to the law, Zhu said in China’s first public comments on the matter.
Liao, who has lived in China’s Guangdong Province for many years, is known for writing erotica and wuxia, or "martial hero" fantasies.
The writer’s China-based Web site has been inaccessible since September last year and the most recent post on his Weibo account was in November last year.
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