The families of those convicted in the “Vulgar Wiki” case, which resulted in the sentencing of 24 people for disclosing the personal information of Xi Jinping‘s daughter and brother-in-law, have broken their days of silence and accused the public security authorities of Maoming, Guangdong province, of framing the case. Twenty-four people complained that they had been tortured to extract confessions.
The Maonan District Court in Maoming City, Guangdong Province, sentenced 24 young people to 14 years in prison for allegedly being the “main culprit” in a cyber case against Niu Tengyu, a 20-year-old wiki operator.
The allegedly highly politicized case began when the personal information of Xi Jinping’s daughter Xi Mingze and Xi Jinping’s brother-in-law Deng Jiagui was made public. The mothers of Niu Tengyu and the other sentenced men are planning to appeal their sentences.
Niu Tengyu’s mother pointed out to the station that the authorities had created a political case because of the leaked information about Xi and Deng. The police in charge of the case in Maoming, Guangdong province, had no choice but to replace the actual “Chena Wiki” with the “Vulgar Wiki” and arrested a large number of members of the “Vulgar Wiki” as a gift to the central government for the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party, and the Maoming police were later awarded a prize.
Niu Tengyu’s mother said: “My son was arrested in early August 2019 because Xi Mingze’s photos were uploaded to the “Chinas (wiki)” website, and after the central government found out about it, a task force was set up, and then a large number of police officers were deployed across the country to arrest these members, but after strict interrogation they were all innocent and were released by the police everywhere. Only the Maoming police wanted to take credit for the case, so they framed the “Vulgarity Network” (meaning “Vulgarity Wiki”) and arrested all the members of the “Vulgarity Network”, and the Maoming police, driven by profit, raised the case against their conscience.
Niu Tengyu grew up in a single-parent Family and followed his mother to live in Jiaozuo, Henan province. He dropped out of school at age 13 due to school registration problems, then taught himself computer knowledge and won third place in the Xi’an China Network Security Skills Competition in 2014. Convinced that her son would never do anything illegal, Niu’s mother condemned the authorities’ use of torture to extract confessions.
These children are not the ones who uploaded the photos, they are the scapegoats,” said Niu’s mother. They find evidence for these children and deprive them of their human rights, just like the Nazi concentration camps. They force them to confess every day, threaten and intimidate them. …… Especially Niu Tengyu, he confessed to being the main culprit and he said I am not the main culprit. He was starved, and he was beaten so brutally that he fainted several times, and after he fainted, he was poured with cold water and made to admit that he was the main culprit.
Chen Bunchang, a member of the Chinese Democratic Party who lives in New York, said that in addition to the “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” charge, the authorities convicted 24 people for “leaking citizens’ personal privacy” and that “human flesh searches” are common on the Chinese Internet.
Chen said, “Because this case involves the relatives of Xi Jinping, the top leader of the Chinese Communist Party, one is his daughter’s ID card and the other is his brother-in-law Deng Jiagui’s information, this case is a direct political matter.
Chen also pointed out that the case also reflects that no one is safe under China’s centralized digital power, and that the biggest violators of citizens’ privacy are the Chinese Communist authorities. He also pointed out that the case is a concoction of the main culprit, and there are many problems with the procedures and injustice of the case.
The lawyer, who wishes to remain anonymous, believes that websites such as “Vulgar Wiki” have been operating for years without the judicial authorities punishing them for violating citizens’ privacy, and were only designated as special cases after information about Xi Jinping’s family was involved, which is a completely political case. Even if the client did upload the personal information of citizens, the punishment should be based on the lawyers, not a heavy sentence of political revenge.
Several lawyers representing the case have withdrawn due to pressure from the authorities, and the case has now been sent to the court of second instance, where several human rights lawyers will be appointed to file an appeal in the future.
It is alleged that the information about Xi Mingze and Deng Jiagui originated from the “Chinawiki” website entry; subsequently, the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of State Security set up the “1902136” special case and handed it over to the police in various regions to handle the case, with the Maonan Internet Police Brigade in Maoming City, Guangdong Province, also being one of the units handling the case.
Later, Niu Tengyu, who had only made more than 200 valid “vicious wiki” entries, was named as the main culprit and charged with “provoking and provoking trouble”; before the court hearing on December 30 last year, he was added two more charges of “infringing personal information” and “illegal business offense”, and was sentenced to a combined 14 years in prison and a fine of 130,000 yuan.
Since 2014, Internet users in mainland China and overseas have built and operated three major online platforms known as the “Vulgar Circle”, including “Vulgar Wiki”, “Chinawiki” and “Red Bank Foundation”. On its website, Vulgar Wiki emphasizes that its purpose is to “expose and document the facts.
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