A five-year-old sex tape of an 18-year-old woman allegedly hired by developers to sleep with a city official is causing yet another scandal for the Chinese Communist Party in Chongqing, the city formerly led by fallen politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來).
The 50-something official, Lei Zhengfu (雷政富), was fired from his position as district party secretary after the video, an apparent extortion attempt, went viral earlier this month and his jowly, pop-eyed mug became the butt of numerous Internet caricatures. The scandal may still be growing, as a whistleblowing former journalist says he may release other, similar tapes soon.
The party is already reeling from the scandal that triggered Bo’s purge and further battered the party’s reputation in the public mind.
News of the sex tape, which was apparently shot in 2007, but only leaked this month, comes as China’s newly installed leadership ramps up anti-corruption efforts as it deals with a stream of bribery and graft cases it fears has hurt its authority.
The tape exploded on the Chinese Internet on Nov. 20 when screenshots of it were uploaded by a Beijing-based former journalist, Zhu Ruifeng (朱瑞峰), to his Hong Kong-registered Web site, an independent online clearing house for corruption allegations.
The lurid images show Lei having sex with a woman. Zhu told reporters that the woman, whose face is not visible in the screen grabs, was hired by a construction company to sleep with Lei in return for construction contracts. The company later tried to use the tape to extort more business from Lei, he said.
Zhu says he obtained the video from someone inside the Chongqing Public Security Bureau who gave it on condition of anonymity. He said he was also given tapes implicating five other Chongqing officials, but is trying to verify their content before releasing them.
Zhu said that after the blackmail attempt, Lei reported the case to Chongqing officials sometime in 2009, which led to the construction boss being jailed for a year on unrelated charges.
Xinhua news agency reported on Monday that Chongqing’s corruption watchdog had pledged a thorough investigation of Lei, who was dismissed on Friday, but said it had yet to formally receive a report about the allegations against Lei.
The China Daily in an editorial on Tuesday said the case showed that the “Internet is worth being embraced by the country’s corruption busters as a close ally.”
It also listed a few lingering questions that the salacious case has thrown up.
“Strangely, the mistress was once detained and the contractor jailed for blackmailing Lei,” it said. “What had happened? ... These are crucial questions waiting to be answered.”
With a younger set of incoming leaders announced this month in Beijing, the government is keen to show that those in power are worthy of their posts and that wrongdoers will be weeded out.
Many Chinese are cynical that allegations against high-profile party members signal a true crackdown on corruption. Many think Bo was no more dirty than the average Chinese politician and that he was deposed because he was on the losing end of factional power struggle.
However, Zhu said the fact that his Web site had not been blocked despite the allegations it outlined was a possible sign that Beijing is getting more serious on corruption.
An American scientist convicted of lying to US authorities about payments from China while he was at Harvard University has rebuilt his research lab in Shenzhen, China, to pursue technology the Chinese government has identified as a national priority: embedding electronics into the human brain. Charles Lieber, 67, is among the world’s leading researchers in brain-computer interfaces. The technology has shown promise in treating conditions such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and restoring movement in paralyzed people. It also has potential military applications: Scientists at the Chinese People’s Liberation Army have investigated brain interfaces as a way to engineer super soldiers by boosting
Indonesian police have arrested 13 people after shocking images of alleged abuse against small children at a daycare center went viral, sparking outrage across the nation, officials said on Monday. Police on Friday last week raided Little Aresha, a daycare center in Yogyakarta on Java island, following a report from a former employee. CCTV footage circulating on social media showed children, most younger than two, lying on the floor wearing only diapers, their hands and feet bound with rags. The police have confirmed that the footage is authentic. Police said they also found 20 children crammed into a room just 3m by 3m. “So
Jailed media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai (黎智英) has been awarded Deutsche Welle’s (DW) freedom of speech award for his contribution to Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. The German public broadcaster on Thursday said Lai would be presented in absentia with the 12th iteration of the award on June 23 at the DW Global Media Forum in Bonn. Deutsche Welle director-general Barbara Massing praised the 78-year-old founder of the now-shuttered news outlet Apple Daily for standing “unwaveringly for press freedom in Hong Kong at great personal risk.” “With Apple Daily, he gave journalists a platform for free reporting and a voice to the democracy movement in
PHILIPPINE COMMITTEE: The head of the committee that made the decision said: ‘If there is nothing to hide, there is no reason to hide, there is no reason to obstruct’ A Philippine congressional committee on Wednesday ruled that there was “probable cause” to impeach Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte after hearing allegations of unexplained wealth, misuse of state funds and threats to have the president assassinated. The unanimous decision of the 53-member committee in the Philippine House of Representatives sends the two impeachment complaints to deliberations and voting by the entire lower chamber, which has more than 300 lawmakers. The complaints centered on Duterte’s alleged illegal use and mishandling of intelligence funds from the vice president’s office, and from her time as education secretary under Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Duterte and the
RSS