Chinese Internet vlogger “Spicy Pen”, whose real name is Qiu Ziming (Photo credit: Internet)
Chinese internet vlogger “Hot Pen Little Ball”, whose real name is Qiu Ziming, was arrested for questioning the official figures released by the Communist Party of China on the death of Chinese soldiers in the India-China conflict, and was recently sentenced to eight months in prison. He was sentenced to eight months in prison. “Spicy Pen” was previously criticized for his “televised confession,” and the Chinese government’s use of the new law to arrest “Spicy Pen” for the old crime has sparked public outcry.
On May 31, the official account of Nanjing Jianye Court in Jiangsu Province released a message saying that Qiu Ziming was found guilty of “infringing on the honor and reputation of heroes and martyrs”. Qiu Ziming pleaded guilty to the charge and said in court that he would never do it again. He was sentenced to eight months in prison and ordered to make public apologies through China’s major domestic portals and national media within ten days from the effective date of the verdict.
On February 19 of this year, the Chinese Communist Party announced the number of dead and wounded Chinese communist soldiers in the Sino-Indian conflict last June, saying that four soldiers were killed and one chief was seriously injured. Since Chinese media are not monitored by public opinion, they are all official CCP media or reduced to semi-official media, and the CCP’s delay in announcing the number of dead and wounded eight months after the incident has led to constant speculation. A number of netizens have been suppressed by the authorities for their online comments questioning the death toll of CCP soldiers. Among them was “Hot Pen Little Ball,” who has more than 2.4 million followers on Weibo. He posted two separate posts on Feb. 19, one saying, “The biggest officer, the chief, survived, and it seems that the chief’s personality is ‘flying general + rabbit + divine machine + blood road + strong luck. On this basis, ‘the foreign army collapsed and fled with their heads in their hands’. Anyway, we won”.
The official Chinese Communist Party why after 8 months before releasing information on the hot topic, “hot pen small ball” also said, “can write this is good. The four people who died were all credited with ‘rescue’, and even those who went to rescue people died, so there must have been those who were not rescued, which means there were not only four people killed in action. This is the reason why India dared to announce the number and list of the fallen in the first place, in India’s view, they won and at a smaller cost.”
Officials previously reported that at 10:29 and 10:46 on February 19, 2021, Qiu Ziming used his personal registered account “Hot Pen Small Ball” on Sina Weibo to post two messages that “belittled and mocked the heroic martyrs who defended the country’s borders” The message was “disparaging and ridiculing the heroic martyrs who guard the country’s borders,” and was followed by a cloud.
On February 20, Qiu Ziming was placed in criminal detention and on February 25, he was arrested on suspicion of picking quarrels and provoking trouble.
On the same day, the Nanjing Public Security Bureau also released a video of “Spicy Pen Small Ball” confessing to the crime on TV. In the video, “Spicy Pen” was wearing a mosaic of his face and a prisoner’s uniform, and he said his actions had “obliterated his conscience” and that he felt “great remorse,” among other things.
The “televised confession” is a product of the Chinese Communist Party’s rule. It is a practice inherited from the Cultural Revolution period of “parading people in the streets”, so that the person concerned has to submit to the pressure of the authorities and make a “repentance” against his will while being in prison, isolated, and under great physical and mental torture.
In addition to “Spicy Pen”, several other Chinese netizens have been suppressed and detained for questioning the official figures of the Chinese Communist Party, and a 19-year-old, Wang Jingyu, has been “fugitive on the Internet” because he is overseas.
In an interview with the station in early March, Wang said, “It’s very likely that the Chinese Communist Party forced him to speak from a prepared script and read it through intimidation, coercion, and even beatings, but not from his heart. Because I personally think that a person who confesses and repents from the heart is unlikely to take that …… and read it out in a series of very smooth readings, I think it is unlikely.”
He believes that the Chinese Communist Party’s purpose in distributing the video of “Hot Pens” confessing in handcuffs in a detention center through major official media is to intimidate the Chinese public and prevent them from speaking out. The video is designed to intimidate the Chinese public and prevent them from speaking out. “It creates a feeling that this person is going against the Party, that he wants to question me, that he doesn’t believe in what the Party is saying, that he wants to question, and that’s what happens when he questions, that’s what happens when he gets handcuffed in a detention center and sits in jail. Then through the propaganda of the official media, more and more Chinese people are afraid to speak out, afraid to criticize the evil party, more afraid to spread the truth, because once the truth is spread will be arrested, will be in jail, will be beaten, giving people a very fearful psychology.”
It is worth noting that when “Spicy Pen” made his comments on February 19 this year questioning the casualties of the Communist army, there was no crime of “infringing on the honor and reputation of heroes and martyrs” in the Chinese Communist law. On Feb. 20, the Nanjing Public Security Bureau issued a criminal warrant for “Spicy Pen” on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” which is also not a crime. “The crime of “infringing on the honor and reputation of heroes and martyrs” only came into effect on March 1 of this year, the same day that Spicy Pen Xiaoqi was formally arrested.
The Chinese Communist Party’s use of a law that just took effect to retroactively charge a person with a previous crime caused an uproar on the Internet. Some netizens criticized the CCP for adding to the crime; others said that the so-called crime against the honor of heroes and martyrs was tailor-made for “Hot Pen Little Ball,” so that everyone would remember him and see how ridiculous China’s laws are.
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