Taiwanese writer Liao Meng-yen (廖孟彥) has been arrested in China for producing obscene content, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) said yesterday, but did not comment on what sentence had been handed down.
The Taipei-based Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) on Tuesday said that the writer, known as Roson (羅森), had not contacted his family for more than a year.
The family last week asked for assistance from the foundation, which promised to contact the Beijing-based Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits regarding the case, the SEF said.
Photo: CNA
The SEF did not release further details in accordance with his family’s wishes.
On Dec. 1, a post on Professional Technology Temple (PTT) said that Liao had been sentenced to 12 years in prison, citing a message from a Chinese reader on Nov. 30.
On Feb. 7, Xinhua news agency reported that Chinese police had arrested a man surnamed Liao for “propagating obscene messages in the guise of fantasy novels.”
At a regular news conference in Beijing yesterday, TAO spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) confirmed that “relevant departments” were handing the case in response to a question from Taiwanese reporters.
Liao is suspected of “producing, selling or disseminating obscene articles for profit” and the case 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 (武俠, martial arts) fantasy stories.
The writer’s China-based Web site has been inaccessible since September last year and the most recent post on his Sina Weibo account was in November last year.
In China, standards governing speech and publishing are fluid, Cross-Strait Policy Association researcher Wu Se-chih (吳瑟致) said yesterday, warning that areas with more ambiguity are subject to legal intervention.
The word of Chinese authorities is law, making it difficult to identify where the boundaries are, Wu said.
Chinese authorities have in the past few years been cracking down on the arts and entertainmentsector, especially online and digital media, he added.
China has over the past few years opened to more Taiwanese writers and publishers, while at the same time failing to define standards, he said.
Taiwanese writers also have a vastly different understanding of freedom of speech and publishing than the Chinese government, he said.
Content deemed to be political, harmful to the image of the country or its leaders, or detrimental to “Chinese rejuvenation” is subject to censorship, Wu said, adding that creative industries should not move to China.
Additional reporting by Chen Yu-fu
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