Chinese are expressing concern about a potential legal change that would allow for fines and even jail time for people who offend the government’s sensibilities by wearing the wrong clothing.
The Chinese Communist Party Politburo Standing Committee recently released a draft of revisions to the law it is considering that would forbid a range of behavior including dress or speech “detrimental to the spirit of the Chinese people and hurt the feelings of the Chinese people.”
The lawmakers did not spell out exactly what could get people sent to a detention center for up to 15 days or fined up to 5,000 yuan (US$684). They have listed the law among their priorities for this year.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The draft law highlights how Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has clamped down on civil liberties in the nation of about 1.4 billion people over his decade in power, including by stepping up Internet censorship.
Police in Suzhou, a city near Shanghai, detained a woman last year for wearing a kimono in public.
China has a longstanding feud with Japan over its actions during World War II, a dispute that has been exacerbated by Tokyo’s decision to release treated wastewater from the wrecked Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant into the ocean.
Authorities have also clamped down on people wearing shirts with rainbows at concerts and distributing flags on a university campus that had the pro-LGBTQ symbol on them. The flag episode occurred at the prestigious Tsinghua University, which gave two students official reprimands.
Many people on Chinese social media expressed concern that the proposed changes might be going too far. One user on Sina Weibo who goes by the handle “Nalan lang yueyueyue” asked how authorities would know when the nation’s feelings would be hurt.
“Shouldn’t the spirit of the Chinese nation be strong and resilient?” the person wrote. “Why can it be easily damaged by a costume?”
Du Zhaoyong (杜兆勇), who identifies himself as a lawyer on Sina Weibo, wrote in a post that received 8,800 likes that the law would “definitely bring huge uncertainty and open wide the door of convenience to arbitrary and unauthorized punishment.”
The post later disappeared from Sina Weibo.
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
PROTESTS: A crowd near Congress waved placards that read: ‘How can we have freedom without education?’ and: ‘No peace for the government’ Argentine President Javier Milei has made good on threats to veto proposed increases to university funding, with the measure made official early yesterday after a day of major student-led protests. Thousands of people joined the demonstration on Wednesday in defense of the country’s public university system — the second large-scale protest in six months on the issue. The law, which would have guaranteed funding for universities, was criticized by Milei, a self-professed “anarcho-capitalist” who came to power vowing to take a figurative chainsaw to public spending to tame chronically high inflation and eliminate the deficit. A huge crowd packed a square outside Congress
RSS