Chinese bride sentenced to hard labour for retweet

Wedding day arrest for anti-Japanese message

By John Oates, 19th November 2010

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It's not just the UK that takes action against people being nasty on Twitter - Chinese authorities have sentenced Cheng Jianping to a year's "Re-education Through Labour" for retweeting an anti-Japanese message.

Cheng retweeted a message from her fiance – who has not been charged – which suggested nationalist students protesting against Japan would do better to head down to the Shanghai expo and smash up the Japanese stand.

Hua Chunhui's original tweet said “Anti-Japanese demonstrations, smashing Japanese products, that was all done years ago by Guo Quan [an activist and expert on the Nanjing Massacre]. It’s no new trick. If you really wanted to kick it up a notch, you’d immediately fly to Shanghai to smash the Japanese Expo pavilion.”

Retweeting the comment as ‘wangyi09’, Cheng Jianping added the phrase “Angry youth, charge!” The tweet has only been retweeted by three people, Amnesty International reports.

At the time China and Japan were in deep dispute about the sovereignty of some uninhabited islands north-east of Taiwan.

Hua seems to have escaped the attention of authorities - Cheng was arrested 10 days ago, on what was to be their wedding day.

Twitter is officially blocked in China.

The UK's Twitter-martyr Paul Chambers appealed his sentence after his message about Robin Hood airport, but lost the appeal last week. ®

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