Citizen journalist jailed for four years

[Chedney Honks]

I don't entirely understand the handwringing here.


- China doesn't have a free press.

- A citizen journalist breaks the law.

- China doesn't fuck about with people breaking the law.


Imagine how much better we'd be doing as a country if everyone spreading misinformation about Covid, including politicians and journalists, were starving to death in a dungeon for four years.

[Bazooka]

Yeah I think people are bit confused, they haven't arrested people over the angle of the reporting on Wuhan or the virus in China, they have arrested people for the reporting on Wuhan or the virus in China, because they aren't state authorised and are using Western outlets to show their content, at which point your angle doesn't matter.

[Paul Calf]

I don't entirely understand the handwringing here.


- China doesn't have a free press.

- A citizen journalist breaks the law.

- China doesn't fuck about with people breaking the law.


Imagine how much better we'd be doing as a country if everyone spreading misinformation about Covid, including politicians and journalists, were starving to death in a dungeon for four years.

[Chedney Honks]

No, I'm pointing out that people have misunderstood why this person has been banged up in a dungeon for four years.

Do you not understand even that?

What happened to your little scrap of paper you were going to write your reminder on?

[Retinend]

Well explain yourself a little. You seem to have been implying that we would be a better country if we emulated China by putting covid-denying cranks directly in jail for the crime of "spreading misinformation". Quite an authoritarian idea.

Or are you saying that if a country doesn't have a free press in the first place, westerners shouldn't try to criticize it for not having one? What about when Hong Kong people do it?

[Paul Calf]

Fucking chinaboos man...as though we don't have enough problems with incipient fascism withour them sucking Winnie The Pooh's dick and begging to be dominated. If China is such a paradise, why do they come back to Europe and the US?

[Chedney Honks]

That's my fault for making one factual point, and then being glib about politicians starving in dungeons. I'll address that in a second.

My factual point is that this person was not locked up for the contents of her reports, she was locked up for reporting through foreign channels without state authority and for public disturbance. I don't agree with that law at all, I absolutely think that there should be a free press, but that's why she was arrested.

I made that point because a lot of people seem to have held her up as a whistleblowing martyr, and the arrest as evidence of a cover-up. Immediately, this shows that those people don't know what she was actually reporting and don't know Mandarin well enough to understand her videos.

The reality is that she was spreading truther plandemic style misinformation about how this is all a socialist conspiracy, and that people shouldn't be in lockdown and all the usual shite. She's a shining example of anti-authoritarianism in the same way that Piers Corbyn is. She's just a bit of a bell-end and holding her up as a martyr shows how little most people know about the case.

As for my point about putting people in dungeons...I'm being a little playful. I fundamentally believe in the importance of free speech. On the other hand, the prospect of throwing our own plandemic tossers in a dungeon is entertaining.

[Retinend]

Well I think you're presuming what people are presuming.

The articles relayed the facts that she was a lone wolf with nothing but a YouTube channel and that her videos were "poorly shot". It didn't give the impression that she was a trustworthy source of info. It's besides the point - you seem to think that her being a nuisance to the Chinese authorities is enough justification for locking her up.

[Endicott]

Addressing the whole thread and no-one in particular - were we right to lock up Tommy Robinson, or not?[nb]this is a bit rhetorical, of course we were[/nb] Depending on who you ask he can be described as a citizen journalist and a martyr for going into prison like he did while just trying to expose the pedos.

[Chedney Honks]

Fucking chinaboos man...as though we don't have enough problems with incipient fascism withour them sucking Winnie The Pooh's dick and begging to be dominated. If China is such a paradise, why do they come back to Europe and the US?

The issue is that you can be quite a binary thinker, that's all.

Your initial response to lockdown back in March was 'fuck off you want the Fascist bully boys to lock us all up', and that is archetypal of your hobby horse reasoning. You have a few key beliefs and you're quick to land on them, usually as soon as you lose your temper. Pointing out the details of a widely misunderstood arrest results in 'fuck off and suck Xi' s dick'. It's funny in a way, but it doesn't really make for anything beyond trading insults and I don't have any animosity towards you at all.

I've posted plenty of anti-CCP/China sentiment and raised awareness of various events (HK protests, tanks rolling through Wuhan, Uighur concentration camps, racism towards foreigners, corruption, nationalism, among others) and the threads/discussions have simply died because of a lack of interest, because they hadn't hit the mainstream news outlets here or because very few people on here really know anything about China beyond the headlines.

It's besides the point - you seem to think that her being a nuisance to the Chinese authorities is enough justification for locking her up.

Come on, man.

I don't agree with that law at all, I absolutely think that there should be a free press, but that's why she was arrested.

I explained that she wasn't a great example of a whistleblower as she was first heralded, but was actually just a bit of a tosser. I don't think she should be locked up for that. I hope that's clear enough.

[Retinend]

Addressing the whole thread and no-one in particular - were we right to lock up Tommy Robinson, or not?[nb]this is a bit rhetorical, of course we were[/nb] Depending on who you ask he can be described as a citizen journalist and a martyr for going into prison like he did while just trying to expose the pedos.

(I'm not giving you attitude with this post - I'm just being thorough)

Citizen journalist or not, he was exposing pedos who were not yet tried. It's a question of presumption of innocence, and protecting innocent people from trial by media. You have to give the guilty the same leeway as we want to give to innocent people on trial. Blind justice and all that.

Check out this pedo:

https://www.hopenothate.org.uk/2019/05/25/jack-renshaw-the-fallout-fantasies-and-denial/

He was a right wing extremist and a pedo. The courts decided that the press were disallowed from reporting on the pedophile angle at all until he was declared guilty. No one knew that he was being tried for pedophilic abuse in addition to conspiracy to murder an MP until he was convicted for it.

Or check out this pedo:

https://www.kentlive.news/news/kent-news/sickening-crimes-richard-huckle-how-3426139

Huckle's church, which failed to detect his pedophilic tendencies, was deemed worthy of protection by the courts. We still don't know which church he belonged to and if one found out, one would be committing a crime to report it. I think this is fair because the public at large, outraged and feeling impotent, will look for those to blame and issue prejudicial justice in whatever way they can, and it is not fair to presume the church he belonged to was indeed to blame.

The courts didn't care that Yaxley-Lennon was a "lifting the lid" on something the establishment didn't want reported on, and they didn't care that he didn't have his "official journalist badge" or any of the stuff that Yaxley-Lennon was crying foul about. His self-propagandizing doesn't mean his crime was any more severe, it just makes him a liar on top of breaking the law.

[Buelligan]

I wouldn't mind so much what these Chinese authority people do if they'd only take some of the fucks from the Spectator and the Guardian.  Is that too much to ask?

[Pearly-Dewdrops Drops]

To the China-hawks: you don't find it all strange or objectionable that the BBC reporting on this is openly fraudulent? Whether you think someone should be jailed for being a right-wing Covid conspiracy theorist physically interfering with checkpoints (and possibly worse - that is what we can see for ourselves on video), you have to admit that this story is being presented to the Western public in an extremely misleading way.

What's more, there is no question that in the United States at least a "citizen journalist" who got in the face of a police officer and physically touched part of a police barricade would likely be charged with a felony. No question.

(Who am I kidding. What's the over-under on people posting in this thread who actually bothered looking at the link I posted on the last page. Zero?)

[Pearly-Dewdrops Drops]

Interesting self-portrait, but it's unclear whose boot you are licking there. Boris Johnson or Donald Trump?

[Endicott]

(I'm not giving you attitude with this post - I'm just being thorough)

I'm not giving you attitude here either by observing that you've missed my point.

[Cuellar]

I hate China

[rack and peanut]

I hate China

But America has things you can hate too!

[Retinend]

I'm not giving you attitude here either by observing that you've missed my point.

Well sorry. I thought you were asking us where we made a principled distinction between this case and the case of Yaxley-Lennon

[Endicott]

But 'blind justice' isn't an all pervading 'thing' in British courts, if anything it's an exception used to protect institutions.

[Retinend]

In reality, whatever her Covid-related grievances, you can easily find online that she was deliberately provoking and interfering with Covid checkpoints and other government measures

https://twitter.com/Mango_Press_/status/1343588803978670081

Was this what she was charged for?

But 'blind justice' isn't an all pervading 'thing' in British courts, if anything it's an exception used to protect institutions.

Was that the point you wanted to make by bringing up Yaxley-Lennon? Genuine question.

[Chedney Honks]

No, they just told her to piss off. I said twice what she was arrested for.

[Retinend]

Ok I'm confused because Pearly Dewdrops was implying that interfering with checkpoints is relevant to her conviction and that this isn't being reported on and that this constitutes "openly fraudulent reporting" on behalf of the BBC.

[Pearly-Dewdrops Drops]

Ok I'm confused because Pearly Dewdrops was implying that interfering with checkpoints is relevant to her conviction and that this isn't being reported on and that this constitutes "openly fraudulent reporting" on behalf of the BBC.

The article linked in the original post, and countless other articles you can easily find throughout the internet since this story has been amplified, states that she was charged with "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" (likely a poor translation of a standardized criminal offense) and clearly implies that this is a vague made-up charge used to target her as a "journalist" who tried to expose the evil Chinese government's attempt to cover up the Covid pandemic. That is the fraudulent narrative that has been circulating online (and in this thread).

[Endicott]

Was that the point you wanted to make by bringing up Yaxley-Lennon? Genuine question.

When I read your response, I picked up on the reliance on 'blind justice', rejected it as 'not really a thing' and then dismissed your post completely. This was a mistake, because reading back you did get my point, you just countered it with an example where British justice does something to protect institutions and the wealthy / privileged, which knackers your argument in my view.

It was just a very glib post on the nature of truth, which doesn't really stand scrutiny, to be honest. Most people will read that BBC article about Zhang and apply their anti-China bias and assume she's innocent. Evidence is then presented in thread that there is more than one view on her actions. What is truth? Why do you believe what you believe?

[Retinend]

you did get my point, you just countered it with an example where British justice does something to protect institutions and the wealthy / privileged, which knackers your argument in my view.

Well I said that no one knows which church Huckle belonged to because the court ruled that to report which one is illegal. It might be a large religious institution or it might be a small one.

[Retinend]

I wouldn't mind so much what these Chinese authority people do if they'd only take some of the fucks from the Spectator and the Guardian.  Is that too much to ask?

Hm. Another person "just joking" about their fantasies of wielding authoritarian power.

[bgmnts]

Starting to wonder which one out of Pearly and Boston is a chinese sleeper agent.

[Chedney Honks]

Hm. Another person "just joking" about their fantasies of wielding authoritarian power.

You should check out the Covid sub

😂😂😂

[Chedney Honks]

Starting to wonder which one out of Pearly and Boston is a chinese sleeper agent.

Yeah, it's me, who posted about tanks running over an environmental protest in Wuhan and footage from my mate being chased by police in Hong Kong.

🎅🎅🎅

[bgmnts]

Yeah, it's me, who posted about tanks running over an environmental protest in Wuhan and footage from my mate being chased by police in Hong Kong.

🎅🎅🎅

Good cover.