Kong Lingbao, the former secretary of the Hengshan District Committee in Jixi City, Heilongjiang Province, and a former subordinate of former Chinese Communist Party official Li Chuanliang, who fled to the United States last August, is the first official to be sentenced to more than 10 years in prison for allegedly “failing to fight the epidemic. On the first day of the new year, officials informed Kong Lingbao of the new charges, alleging that he watched porn during the epidemic. However, Li Chuanliang had previously said that Kong was reported to have stepped down for revealing the truth about the severity of the epidemic.
According to the website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) on January 1, 2021, Kong Lingbao, former secretary of the Hengshan District Committee in Jixi City, Heilongjiang Province, became the first official in the province to be investigated for “ineffective epidemic prevention”. The report said that Kong Lingbao’s lack of attention led to 24 confirmed cases in Hengshan District, accounting for 52.17 percent of the city’s confirmed cases and making it the hardest hit area of the epidemic.
Subsequently, the mainland media reported that Kong Lingbao was removed from office and filed for investigation in February 2020 for inappropriate remarks, transferred to prosecution in April, dismissed from public office in August, expelled from the Party in October, and sentenced to 10 years and 6 months in November. He was also fined RMB 600,000.
According to investigators, during the command of epidemic prevention and control, the official topped up, purchased and watched pornographic videos on pornographic websites at night before going to bed.
However, because the Chinese Communist Party’s judicial system has traditionally operated in a black box, the outside world has doubts about the real reason for Kong Lingbao’s heavy sentence.
In an interview with Radio Free Asia and other foreign media, Li Chuanliang, the former vice mayor of Jixi who fled to the United States on August 25 last year, revealed that his former subordinate, Kong Lingbao, was arrested for his private comments criticizing the Chinese Communist Party’s concealment of the epidemic and its ineffective prevention and control.
Prior to the outbreak of pneumonia in Wuhan, Li Chuanliang often had small group chats with like-minded friends, and over dinner, he and his friends would talk about the CCP system and discuss the shortcomings of the “Party”.
On February 14, 2020, Kong Lingbao, formerly a subordinate of Li Chuanliang’s Finance Bureau and later secretary of the Hengshan District Committee in Jixi City, was reported and dismissed from his post for making comments about the central government’s concealment of the pneumonia epidemic in Wuhan; in the afternoon of the same day, Kong was arrested by police and his home and office were thoroughly searched.
Li Chuanliang said, Kong Lingbao discussed with us privately, he did hear a lot of whistle blowers (revealed information). His general point was that the New Crown (Chinese Communist virus (also known as New Coronavirus, COVID-19)) epidemic was so serious that it was both a natural and a man-made disaster. Just after saying this, he was removed from his post and arrested. Not only that, but several people among my group of former colleagues were interviewed one after another.
According to Li Chuanliang, one of the charges for which Kong was arrested was “making inappropriate comments”, but what exactly is “inappropriate comments”? As the current fourth-ranking secretary of the Communist Party, Kong Lingbao is said to have said, “I can’t work for the Communist Party anymore, I can’t work for the Communist Party anymore.” This private conversation was reported on tape, and Kong Lingbao was convicted as a result.
In early February last year, Li Chuanliang revealed that local officials were not allowed to report the epidemic, but Kong, as the head of his district, saw with his own eyes that unemployed workers in a depleted local coal mine were successively suffering from Wuhan pneumonia. He said, “The Chinese Communist Party wants to make a statement. He said, “The Chinese Communist Party can arrest whoever they want, Kong Lingbao was actually convicted is also the internal factional struggle of the Chinese Communist Party, the whistleblower is also an insider, Kong Lingbao stepped down, he went up.”
He also said he heard that the authorities have gone through (judicial) procedures, Kong Lingbao may be sentenced to more than 10 years of heavy imprisonment.
Li Chuanliang said, “Why say he (Kong Lingbao) made inappropriate comments? That’s to teach him not to talk nonsense. At the end of the day, the authorities started to weave in charges. In today’s Chinese rule of law system, they can make up any kind of charges, and they are beaten into submission. Now that the supervisory committee, discipline inspection and procuratorial authorities have all merged, they can use whatever means they want to use against the person in question.”
After Kong Lingbao was arrested, Li Chuanliang feared he would be implicated and made up his mind to flee China. He said “the most important reason for fleeing the United States was the Kong Lingbao incident.
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