Another social media user is facing heat in China after claiming that the death toll from June 15 clash between Indian and Chinese PLA troops in Galwan Valley could have been much higher.
Chinese state media, the Global Times wrote that Qiu Ziming, a social media star with more than 2.5 million followers on Sina Weibo, received a prison term of eight months for defaming martyrs under a new Chinese law.
China has jailed a popular blogger for "defaming martyrs" after he suggested the death toll of the China-India border clash last year was higher than the official count of four.
Qiu Ziming was sentenced to eight months in prisonhttps://t.co/EhQxbtkWgy pic.twitter.com/tdHrjvPBx7
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) June 1, 2021
Qiu was also ordered to publicly apologize through major social media websites and the national media to erase the negativity, a court in Nanjing ruled, according to GT.
On February 19, Qiu had ‘disrespected’ the PLA soldiers who were killed in the Galwan valley border clash with Indian soldiers.
He was detained a day later and his Weibo account was also suspended. On March 1, Qiu apologized on China’s state broadcaster CCTV.
Earlier, as The EurAsian Times reported, a Chinese-origin permanent resident of the United States, wanted by Beijing for his comments over the India-China border clash, was released by Dubai authorities after weeks of detainment.
After the Galwan valley clash, Wang had raised questions online as to why China took six months to release information (on PLA casualties), initiating a harassment campaign by the authorities that saw him flee to Turkey.
As EurAsian Times had reported on August 7, 2020, another Chinese netizen was detained after he was accused of disseminating misinformation over the death of Chinese PLA soldiers in the Galwan valley clash.
The netizen had lambasted the inferior quality of military vehicles supplied by the Dongfeng company that had purportedly resulted in a number of losses on the Chinese side during its clash with Indian troops.
